Howard is in charge
Menard leads men’s Pool B
Glenn Howard and his team of Adam Spencer, David Mathers and Scott Howard have taken charge at the 2017 Home Hardware Road to the Roar Pre-Trials curling competition at Eastlink Arena. Howard, whose team curls out of St. George’s Golf and Curling Club in Ontario, stole a four-ender in the fourth end en route to a 7-5 win over Halifax’s Jamie Murphy in Wednesday’s evening draw.
The win moved Howard to 3-0 (won-lost) in Pool A standings.
He is the only undefeated team in the 14-team men’s pretrials. Murphy slips to 2-2. The top three teams from both Pool A and Pool B will advance to the playoffs, which start on Saturday. Wednesday evening’s draw also featured a matchup between the top two teams in Pool B, and it was a crowdpleaser. Charley Thomas, from Edmonton, scored two points
with hammer in the 10th end to move into a 9-9 tie with Jean-Michel Menard from Saint-Romuald, Que., to force an extra end.
Menard saw a three-point lead after nine ends against
Winnipeg’s Pat Simmons evaporate earlier in the day. Simmons won that game with a steal of one in the extra end, dropping Menard to 2-1 and improving Simmons to 1-1. The evening game would not be a carbon-copy. Menard scored a single with the hammer to win 10-9 to improve to 3-1 in the standings while Thomas slips a notch to 2-1. The men’s No. 1 seed, John Morris, from Vernon, B.C., was knocked out of the ranks of the undefeated by the ninth-seeded Colton Flasch from Saskatoon in Wednesday’s noon-hour draw.
Flasch rode clutch draws to the button and four-foot in the eighth and 10th ends to an 8-7 victory.
It was his first of two wins on Wednesday.
He took a 5-1 lead after three ends and downed a Regina team skipped by Islander Adam Casey 7-4 in the evening draw to even his record at 2-2. Casey slides to 1-2.
Morris takes a 2-1 record into Thursday’s 4 p.m. game against Casey.
Winnipeg’s Jason Gunnlaugson scored a 6-5 victory over Sarnia’ Mark Bice (0-4) to move into a tie with Morris at 2-1. He plays Howard at 4 p.m.