News Elite 10

VICTORIA — Recently crowned Brier champion Kevin Koe of Calgary and Saskatoon’s Steve Laycock advanced to the semifinals of the Elite 10 at the Q Centre.

Koe, who captured the Canadian men’s title this past Sunday, cruised to a 4-and-3 victory over Toronto’s John Epping in the quarterfinals of the match play event Saturday and Laycock took the eighth end to win 1-up over defending champion Mike McEwen of Winnipeg.

Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L., and Winnipeg’s Reid Carruthers earned byes as the top two seeds during pool play. Gushue will face Laycock and Carruthers clashes with Koe in the semifinals.

Koe opened with the hammer and landed on the button with his last to count two and take the first end. Epping was forced to push in the second and lose the hammer and Koe capitalized in the third making it through the port to punch out a counter and go 2-up.  Epping attempted a double raise in four, but Koe’s shot rock jammed and stuck around to count for the steal and a three-end gap. Koe swiped again in five to mathematically eliminate his opponent as Epping attempted an angle raise that missed the mark. 

Meanwhile, McEwen opened with the hammer and scored a point in the first although he did not need to throw his last skip stone as Laycock wrecked on a guard. Laycock tied it up in the second counting a deuce and the teams alternated pushes in three and four.

McEwen scored in five and Laycock got a deuce in six with a sweet draw shot that hit the brakes just in time. 

McEwen was held to a push in seven to relinquish the hammer coming home. Laycock sat two after his first skip stone and McEwen missed on his last. 

The semifinals start at 10:30 p.m. ET / 7:30 p.m. PT. Watch live on Sportsnet.

NOTES: The Elite 10 is the fifth event of the Pinty’s GSOC season and runs through to Sunday at the Q Centre at West Shore Parks & Recreation. … The Elite 10 uses a match play format where teams attempt to win the most ends per game by either scoring two or more points (with hammer) or stealing at least one point (without hammer). … New rules for the event this year are tick shots are not allowed on guards sitting on the centre line during the first five rocks of play and sweepers cannot use stopwatches.