News Elite 10

PORT HAWKESBURY, N.S. — Perhaps it was the luck of the Irish on St. Patrick’s Day that helped propel Calgary’s Kevin Koe into the Princess Auto Elite 10 playoffs.

Koe started the day with just one point for a shootout loss but picked up six crucial points Friday to make the cut defeating Toronto’s John Epping 3-and-1 and Niklas Edin of Sweden 5-and-3.

Koe, second Brent Laing and third Marc Kennedy all threw 100 percent in the game against Edin with lead Scott Pfeifer, filling in for injured Ben Hebert, finished at 94.

“Whatever it was I hope it sticks around,” Laing said. “Hopefully we can carry on for another two days.”

Koe scored in the first and stole three consecutive ends as Edin struggled to hit the mark. Edin needed to score in the fifth end to stay in the mix and Koe tacked on another checkmark.

“We played really well today in both games and had a quick turnaround but sometimes the 30-minute turnaround is better than the hour turnaround,” Laing said. “Kevin made a whole bunch of really good shots today to put pressure on the other skips and we were fortunate they didn’t come up with quite as big of shots as Kev did, so yeah it’s a big win. It always sucks to start in the hole like we did yesterday. You never like to miss the playoffs at these events, they’re the best events going, so it was a great day for us.”

Edin ended on the outside with a 1-0-0-3 record and three points.

While Koe is in the clear, reigning champion Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L., is now playing the waiting game. Gushue finished off his round-robin schedule with a 2-up win over Saskatoon’s Steve Laycock. The recently Brier winners went 1-1-0-2 with five points and need things to go their way in the final round-robin draw — a win by the Elite 10 Select over Team Carruthers and a Team Epping loss to Team Jacobs — in order to advance straight through to the playoffs.

Gushue opened with hammer and fired an angle raise to bump aside two counters and score. Laycock took the second and didn’t need to deliver his final rock of the end. Gushue’s last locked onto a Laycock stone and promoted it to the button for the Saskatoon side to sit two. Gushue sat shot rock and looked to draw to the button for second to take the end, but came up short. Laycock looked to peel out Gushue’s shot rock, but clipped a stone higher up in the house for a steal. Laycock came up light on his last in five for a push and Gushue added another checkmark in six. Laycock took the seventh and Gushue tacked on another point in eight. 

Laycock has been eliminated at 0-0-1-2 and one point.

NOTES: The Princess Auto Elite 10 is the fifth event of the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season and features a match play format where teams compete to win the most ends per game by either scoring two or more with the hammer or stealing at least one without the hammer. … Blank ends result in loss of hammer and there are no carryovers. … The champion will earn an invite to the season-ending Humpty’s Champions Cup running April 25-30 at WinSport Arena in Calgary. … Teams also earn points toward the Rogers Grand Slam Cup, awarded to the overall season champion. … The Princess Auto Elite 10 runs through to Sunday at the Civic Centre.