Struggling Team ‘Toba in trouble at Brier

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This article was published 06/03/2019 (2617 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON — The timing couldn’t have been worse for Team Manitoba.

Struggling to grasp any shred of consistency in its game, Mike McEwen’s foursome really didn’t need to face Brad Jacobs and his Northern Ontario crewmen at their sharpest Tuesday night.

Northern Ontario posted deuces in the first, third and fifth ends to lead 6-3 at the break, ultimately prevailing 9-5 in nine ends. Jacobs is 6-0 and the czar of Pool A at the Canadian men’s curling championship.

McEwen has split six games and must pretty much run the table the rest of the way to qualify for the Brier’s weekend playoff round. The roll must begin this afternoon in the team’s last round-robin game against John Likely of Prince Edward Island.

Four teams from each of the eight-team pools forge on to the championship round. However, they all take their records with them. Teams then cross over to battle the other four teams. McEwen would still have Alberta’s Kevin Koe and Team Canada’s Brad Gushue waiting on the other side.

“We’re kind of in the trench and there’s no turning back. What, maybe seven, eight sudden-death games or something like that. I don’t think you want to get to four losses. We’ve seen in most cases where that doesn’t get you anything, so it’s kind of gotta win out,” McEwen said.

Manitoba was in pursuit of Jacobs all game, losing the first-end hammer in the pre-game draw to the button “by four millimetres,” according to the skip. That’s a near-lethal injection even before the TV lights turn on, as Jacobs owns a 34-7 record this season with last-rock advantage to open.

“That would have helped our cause,” McEwen said, with a laugh. “If you look at the stats of very good teams, they’ll often have winning records of 70 to 80 per cent when they start with the hammer… it’s quite an edge.”

Jacobs, with third Ryan Fry, second E.J. Harnden and lead Ryan Harnden curled a combined 92 per cent, four points higher than Manitoba’s collective accuracy rating.

“That’s a team that’s playing extremely well. The only feeling I felt is that we were going to have to play pretty close to our best to have a straight-up battle with them, and we did that at times but not for the whole game,” McEwen said. “That’s a team you can tell they know what each other’s going to do before they do it.”

If anything, a McEwen-Jacobs matchup at this point in the round-robin could have, should have, been one of the week’s showcase games — and then Manitoba went all wonky, converting certain victories into ghastly losses Sunday night and Monday afternoon.

McEwen, third Reid Carruthers, second Derek Samagalski and lead Colin Hodgson share the guilt of getting into this precarious predicament.

It’s the debilitating result of the first-year team in the preliminary stages of finding its way, McEwen said.

“I sometimes don’t know what my guys are going to do before they do it. As a skip you’re always trying to anticipate. But that’s what comes with teams having some time together and working hard over a long period of time,” he said.

McEwen began Tuesday blasting Andrew Symonds of Newfoundland-Labrador 13-4 in eight ends.

Meanwhile, Edmonton’s Brendan Bottcher, wearing Wild-Card colours, stomped Martin Crete of Quebec 10-4 to improve to 5-1 and secure a spot in the next round. Saskatchewan’s Kirk Muyres moved to 4-2 with a 9-5 win over winless Symonds.

Across the draw, Alberta’s Kevin Koe continues to leave a trail of destruction in his wake. Koe dumped Jim Cotter’s British Columbia crew 9-5 Tuesday afternoon to raise his record to 5-0 and maintain ownership of the Pool B penthouse.

Winnipegger B.J. Neufeld, recruited to play third for the 2018 Olympian, said his skip casts an intimidating shadow.

“I never looked forward to playing Kevin, that’s for sure. You looked forward to the challenge but, obviously, he’s one of the best ever,” said Neufeld, who spent 11 seasons on the back end with McEwen and suffered some crushing defeats to the talented shotmaker from Calgary. “He had our number the last couple of years. He beat us in some pretty big games.”

Koe rallied to defeat Manitoba in the 2017 Brier semifinal in St. John’s, N.L.. Nine months later, he got them again in the Olympic Trials final in Ottawa. “I’m just super happy and fortunate to have him as a teammate, as opposed to having to go up against him,” acknowledged Neufeld.

Team Canada’s Brad Gushue escaped with an 8-7 triumph over New Brunswick’s Terry Odishaw to improve to 4-1 and take sole possession of second in Pool B.

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell