Koe down to his last shot after another upset
Wednesday it was Kevin Koe. Thursday it was Brendan Bottcher and Koe again.
The two overwhelming favourites to win the Alberta Boston Pizza Cup and represent the province at the Tim Hortons Brier have been bounced in A Event bracket play and Koe lost again in B Event and is down to his last life.
Bottcher, coming off a win in the most recent Pinty’s Slam event and a $54,500 triumph in the TSN Skins Game, made it to the A Event final Thursday, where No. 4 seed Ted Appelman of Edmonton proceeded to treat him like a beer league curler.
Winning hammer, the 38-yearold Appelman, who lost to Bottcher in the BP Cup final two years ago in Westlock, jumped on the backto-back champions for three in the first end and stole deuces on the fourth and fifth to grab an 8-2 lead and cruise to a 10-4 win.
Three-time Brier champion, two-time world champion and Olympian Koe gave up three early and suffered a massive upset to 23-year-old Calgary skip Jeremy Harty on Wednesday.
Thursday night, he gave up a steal to make it 6-6 on the 10th end and then another steal in the extra end to lose to Dylan Vavrek of Sexsmith.
Koe had led the game 6-3 through seven ends.
Now both Koe and Bottcher find themselves playing in Friday’s 2 p.m. B Event semi hoping to advance to the B Final at 6:30 p.m. in the event at the Ellerslie Curling Club.
There was no aftershock when Koe and Harty returned to the sheets for their next game Thursday. Harty crashed to earth 11-4 versus Appelman. And Koe put the boots to Sherwood Park’s James Pahl 10-3.
In other B Event action Thursday, Aaron Sluchinski of Airdrie scored three in the ninth but gave up two on the 10th to Scott Garnett of Strathmore to lose 10-9 and Harty put Edmonton’s Karsten Sturmay, last year’s runner-up, one loss away from elimination, with a 7-2 thumping.
Today in the 2 p.m. draw, it’s Hardy versus Garnett to see who will advance against the winner of Bottcher-Vavrek in the 6:30 p.m. B Event final.