News Champions Cup

CALGARY — Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., was rock solid in securing his team’s playoff spot at the Humpty’s Champions Cup.

The Olympic gold medallist threw at an outstanding 97 percent clip during a 5-1 win over Winnipeg’s Team Carruthers, skipped by Braeden Moskowy, in the final round-robin draw Friday at WinSport Arena.

Jacobs advanced to the quarterfinals with a 3-1 record while Moskowy needed the win to stay in the mix and has been eliminated at 1-3.

After a couple blanks to start, Jacobs cracked open the scoreboard with a hit for three in the third and cruised away from there.

“It was probably one of our better games of the week,” Team Jacobs third Ryan Fry said. “We ended up getting the three. We got a miss out of Braeden and were able to capitalize on it, so we’ll take it.”

Moskowy faced a trio on his last in four and hit and stuck for a single. Jacobs added bagels to the board again in five and extended his lead in the sixth making a great raise to declutter the house on his first skip stone and then drawing to the top of the button with his last for a single.

“We know he’s going to be close on those when he goes down,” Fry said about Jacobs’ house-clearing shot. “For him that’s a pretty relatively easy shot. The fact that everything went was nice, but just to have a shot for one was a bonus for us.”

A steal in seven put Moskowy behind by four points and the teams shook hands. Jacobs will battle Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen in Saturday’s quarterfinals.

“We like playing those guys and they like playing us,” Fry said. “We’ll give our best and see what happens.”

Moskowy, who normally plays third, skipped the squad this week with Reid Carruthers away at the world mixed doubles championship. Derek Samagalski and Colin Hodgson also moved up in the lineup and new alternate/adviser Craig Savill made his debut with the team at lead. Moskowy skipped Saskatchewan to a Canadian junior title in 2011, but it had been a few years since he last called a game.

Elsewhere, Calgary’s Kevin Koe (3-1) qualified for the playoffs closing out with a 7-3 victory in only five ends over Rogers Grand Slam Cup champ Niklas Edin of Sweden.

Team Koe threw 97 percent in the game with lead Ben Hebert and third Marc Kennedy receiving perfect scores.

“That’s probably the best game we’ve played as a team since the Brier, for sure,” Koe said. “Obviously winning the draw off is big and getting hammer. We had a really good end, jumped out to three on him and able to force him to one. We had them in trouble every end. A really good team game and it’s good to see.”

Koe scored three in the first and four in the third while limiting Edin to singles in the even ends. Edin (2-2) stole one in the fifth, but shook hands anyway to end the night early as he prepares for morning tiebreakers.

The 2016 world champs have been strong all week with their lone loss coming in an extra end to Toronto’s John Epping.

“We’ve played good every game. Even that game we played one bad end and it ended up costing us. It was still close and we lost in an extra end,” Koe said. “I feel for not playing a lot of important games lately we’ve been playing pretty good this week and hopefully we’ll keep it going.”

Koe will take on former teammate John Morris (3-1) of Vernon, B.C., in the quarterfinals.

Meanwhile, Epping earned his second win of the tourney defeating American John Shuster 5-3 as they both stay in the mix with 2-2 records. The team will face off again Saturday morning in the tiebreakers alongside Edin versus Saskatoon’s Steve Laycock.

Brad Gushue (4-0) of St. John’s and Switzerland’s Peter de Cruz await the tiebreaker winners. De Cruz (3-1) locked down the No. 2 seed as his team finished with a perfect shootout score.

In the women’s tiebreaker, American Jamie Sinclair picked out the counter to score two in the eighth and lift her team to a 7-6 win over Kerri Einarson of Winnipeg. Sinclair qualifies for the playoffs in her first Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling tournament with her current lineup.

She now will play top seed Alina Paetz of Switzerland in the women’s quarterfinals. Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones faces Ottawa’s Rachel Homan, Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland goes up against Jacqueline Harrison of Mississauga, Ont., and Edmonton’s Val Sweeting meets Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg in the other playoff matches.