Cathy O showing her sheet mettle

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This article was published 20/04/2012 (5209 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Cathy Overton-Clapham clinched first place in the round-robin on Thursday at the Sun Life Financial Players’ Championship in Summerside, P.E.I.

The Winnipeg skip won twice on the day to up her record to 6-0 with one round-robin game remaining at the final leg of the Capital One Grand Slam of Curling.

She posted a 4-3 victory over Chelsea Carey of Morden in the morning and then beat Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni 6-4 in the late afternoon.

Five teams are still alive for the final three playoff spots on the women’s side.

Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones and Saskatoon’s Stefanie Lawton have the inside track with 4-2 records. Tirinzoni, Edmonton’s Heather Nedohin and Sherry Middaugh of Coldwater, Ont., are all 3-3.

Jones, the defending champion, lost two of her first three games but has won three in a row since. She finishes group play today against her former teammate, Overton-Clapham.

Jones beat Middaugh 8-4 in her first game Thursday and Scotland’s Eve Muirhead 6-1 in the other. Lawton split her two games, losing 7-6 to Nedohin in an extra end and beating Middaugh 6-5.

Tirinzoni stole a win against Muirhead, stealing a pair in an extra end in a 9-7 victory. Nedohin was an 8-6 winner over Carey, but lost 4-2 to Middaugh in the late draw.

Both Muirhead (1-5) and Carey (0-6) have been eliminated from playoff contention.

On the men’s side, Kevin Martin of Edmonton is the only unbeaten team with a 4-0 record. He beat Brad Gushue of St. John’s 4-2 in the early afternoon draw and defeated Sweden’s Niklas Edin rink 6-4 at night.

Martin, the two-time defending bonspiel champion, is a game up on a pair of second-place teams.

World champion Glenn Howard and the surprising John Epping are both 3-1.

Epping, of Toronto gave Coldwater’s Howard his first loss of the bonspiel, winning a 6-3 decision. He followed that up with a 7-6 extra-end win over Calgary’s Kevin Koe.

Howard bounced back with a 6-4 win over Winnipeg’s Jeff Stoughton, thanks in large part to a four-spot in the sixth.

After losing twice on Wednesday, Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen played his way back into playoff contention, with a pair of wins on Thursday. First he beat Stoughton 4-3, then he used hammer in the extra end to beat Gushue 7-6.

Joining him at 2-2 is Koe, who beat Edin 6-3.

Gushue and Stoughton are both 1-3. The Edin rink, skipped by Sebastian Kraupp, is still looking for their first win at 0-4.

The top four teams in both the men’s and women’s division make the playoffs. The women’s final is Saturday and the men’s final is Sunday.

— Postmedia News