Manitoba solidifies top spot at Brier

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This article was published 08/03/2017 (3369 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — It would have been an unrealistic ask of Mike McEwen and his Manitoba teammates Wednesday night.

To reproduce in the evening what they did in the afternoon — the heart-stopping, knee-rattling drama of a final-stone 6-5 victory over fellow Canadian curling collosus Brad Jacobs of Northern Ontario — simply wasn’t possible.

Make no mistake, the Winnipeggers still won at night. Huge. It was just a bit anti-climactic compared with McEwen’s recent flare for the dramatics.

Team Manitoba posted a 9-3 victory over Jamie Murphy of Nova Scotia before about 6,000 frenetic curling fans at Mile One Centre in downtown St. John’s. And now they find themselves perched atop the Canadian men’s curling championship standings at 7-1.

McEwen said it was exactly the kind of night his team desperately required.

“We were looking for something like that,” he said. “I’m glad it wasn’t such a grind because it feels like we’ve been here 10 days and it’s been only five.”

McEwen saved his finest shot of a back-and-forth contest against Jacobs to the very end.

Down by one but already counting one in the four-foot, the 36-year-old product of Brandon elected to toss an in-turn draw and let his sweepers, second Matt Wozniak and lead Denni Neufeld, do the heavy lifting.

McEwen followed the rock closely, urging his front end to push harder as the yellow stone curled in just enough to bite the button. All four players on Manitoba, including third B.J. Neufeld, who was judging the line, leaped and raised their brooms in celebration.

The loss dropped Jacobs, the 2014 Olympic gold medallist, to 6-3.

After that wild one, McEwen said the team needed time to come back down to earth, prior to the matchup with Nova Scotia (2-7).

“We tried to actually get through the adrenaline rush and actually calm down. We did our best to debrief, get some food in us, get the feet up off the ground,” he said. “That’s just a ton of energy flowing through you.”

McEwen had a few key misses early in the contest — Jacobs led 3-1 at the fifth-end break — but rebounded with a solid second half.

The comeback win came a day after Manitoba rallied to score six straight points in the final three ends to down New Brunswick.

“Personally, I’ve been starting to crack a little bit. I haven’t been the nicest skip out there,” McEwen said, laughing. “There’s a ton of pressure, and we’ve been playing from behind in quite a few situations recently. It was nice to play in the lead again in a game.”

Murphy’s team, which emerged from the grind of the four-game pre-qualifying just to make the main Brier draw, wasn’t sharp in the battle with Manitoba, particularly in the second half. Tied 3-3, Nova Scotia yielded a pair in seven, a steal in eight and then three more in the ninth before conceding.

“We kept it pretty simple and that was a good thing, coming off such a high of the last game,” third B.J. Neufeld said. “We’ve been playing from behind the last three games and that gets pretty tiring after a while. You can’t play like that all the time. You have to win some games by getting the lead early and holding it.”

McEwen has no freebies today, with games against Kevin Koe’s Team Canada at 12:30 p.m. and Glenn Howard of Ontario at 5:30 p.m. McEwen completes the round robin Friday morning against Quebec.

Koe and Brad Gushue of Newfoundland-Labrador share second place with 6-2 records, while Jacobs is third (6-3). Quebec’s Jean-Michel Ménard suffered a 7-3 loss to Gushue in the late draw to fall to 5-3.

“We’ve got a pretty meaty schedule coming up, three really good teams — two with great records, one not so much but can beat anyone on any give day, Team Ontario — so, this is important for us to feel like we have a lot in the tank (Thursday),” said McEwen.

“We couldn’t ask for anything more. I think we’re close to a playoff position, so we’ve got three games coming up, we don’t have to win all of them but the more we can win, that 1-2 (Page playoff) game is in sight and that’s where we want to be.”

John Morris of British Columbia and Saskatchewan’s Adam Casey are both at 5-4, and are still in the playoff picture.

The last draw of the round robin goes Friday morning, with the playoffs to begin that evening.

The Brier final is scheduled for Sunday at 5:30 p.m.

jason.bell@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @WFPJasonBell