News National

SAULT STE. MARIE, Ont. — Two streaks came to an end during the final round-robin draw of the BOOST National.

John Morris snapped an 11-game losing skid picking up his first Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling victory of the season by defeating Brad Gushue 5-2 Friday and halting the reigning world champion’s own win streak at 17.

Team Morris, from Vernon, B.C., was running on fumes after arriving at the BOOST National straight from Summerside, P.E.I., where they clinched a spot in the Canadian Olympic curling trials Sunday.

“We definitely came in here expecting to do a lot better than we did,” Team Morris third Jim Cotter said. “To come against probably the best team in the world right now and come up with a win is hopefully good momentum for us heading into our next event.”

Gushue, who swept through the Tour Challenge Tier 1 and Masters, already clinched a playoff spot and finished round-robin play at 3-1.

The moustachioed Morris (1-3) opened with the hammer and drew against two in the first for a single. Gushue faced three counters on his last and over-curled to take off the top one and eliminate the backer but left the shot stone that was sandwiched in the middle untouched for a steal.

Gushue, from St. John’s, N.L., bounced back with a triple takeout on his first skip stone in three but needed to hit it an inch thinner to keep his shooter in. That set up a blank or a possible split on a guard for two. Gushue opted to try for the latter but when his shooter stuck and didn’t spill in, second Brett Gallant brushed the raised guard out the back to blank.

Looking at two in the fourth, Gushue punched out the one on the button for a single. Morris maintained control hammering a couple Gushue stones in five and sticking around for two points to make it 4-1.

With a quarry of rocks filling the house and a cluster in the four-foot circle during six, Gushue looked to hit and roll to nudge another Morris rock but didn’t push the second one far enough and only got a single.

Morris had an opportunity for two in the seventh hitting Gushue’s counter but jammed for just one. Gushue held the hammer coming home in eight, but trailed by three and didn’t get to throw his last as Morris ran him out of options.

“The key was just making shots,” Cotter said. “The four of us making eight shots and that’s really what we kind of struggled doing at the start of the week. We managed to do that in that game and you get results when you make eight shots.”

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Meanwhile, Tour Challenge Tier 2 champion Jason Gunnlaugson took the top spot in the playoffs with an unblemished 4-0 record. Gunnlaugson could have come out flat following a heartbreaking premature exit at the pre-trials but is flying high again.

“It’s pretty tough but the Slams are just such amazing events to get a chance to play in,” Team Gunnlaugson lead Connor Njegovan said. “Anytime you get to play in an arena, especially for us where we’ve worked so hard to get back in here, it’s not too hard to get up for these events. You get to play some of the best teams in the world and it just gives us a chance every week to try and prove ourselves.”

The Winnipeg native Gunnlaugson earned a wild 10-7 extra-end victory over Greg Drummond of Scotland to secure the No. 1 seed.

It was a back-and-forth battle with Gunnlaugson taking two in the second and Drummond matching with a pair in three. Gunnlaugson counted three in the fourth and the teams alternated deuces again in six and seven. Drummond closed the gap with a three-ender of his own in eight to force the extra, but Gunnlaugson fired a fastball on his last in OT to secure the dub.

“We’ve had a crazy couple weeks where we were really focusing on the pre-trials,” Njegovan said. “We knew this is a really huge event for us to make our goals for the year, so it was kind of like find a way to pull through and have some fire this week. We’ve done a really good job and Jay’s been shooting the lights out.”

Hometown hero Brad Jacobs (2-2) kept his BOOST National title defence alive thanks to thievery with a 7-2 win over Winnipeg’s William Lyburn (1-3).

Jacobs poached points in the first and second ends then stole three in the fourth and another in five to lead by six. Lyburn broke the shutout with a deuce in the sixth and Jacobs, in his first try with the hammer, tacked one more on the board in seven for handshakes.

The reigning Olympic gold medallist Jacobs will play Scotland’s Bruce Mouat in an evening tiebreaker.

Reid Carruthers (3-1) survived a late surge from Pat Simmons for a 6-5 victory and a playoff spot in a battle of Winnipeg-based teams. Simmons stays in it at 2-2 and takes on Toronto’s John Epping in an evening tiebreaker.

Greg Balsdon of Kingston, Ont., topped Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen 5-2. Both teams finished round-robin play at 2-2 and face off again in the tiebreakers.

The women’s playoff bracket is set: top-seed Tracy Fleury (4-0) of Sudbury, Ont., goes up against Switzerland’s Binia Feltscher (2-2) of Switzerland, Ottawa’s Rachel Homan faces Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge, Alta. (both 3-1), Edmonton’s Val Sweeting (4-0) clashes with Calgary’s Chelsea Carey (2-2) and Winnipeg’ Jennifer Jones (4-0) plays Switzerland’s Alina Paetz (2-2). Watch Saturday on CBC at 1 p.m. ET with Homan versus Scheidegger as the featured game.

The BOOST National is the third event and second major of the 2017-18 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season and features 15 of the best men’s teams and 15 of the best women’s teams from around the globe.

TV coverage continues Friday at 8 p.m. ET with the men’s tiebreakers on Sportsnet, Sportsnet NOW (Canada) and gsoc.yaretv.com (international).