Muirhead rink edged out for European spot

Glen Muirhead and his team narrowly missed out on next month’s European Championships after losing to Glasgow curler Ross Paterson in the deciding game of their best-of-three final at the European playdowns at Perth.

Paterson drew first blood at the Dewars Centre when he won 7-5 on Saturday, but Muirhead dominated yesterday morning’s second match 7-3 to set up a winner-takes-all third game.

A Muirhead three at the second end gave him an early 3-1 lead, but singles at the next three ends put Paterson 4-3 up.

Alternate shots and a couple of blanked ends saw Paterson still in front at 5-4, only for Muirhead to draw level with his last shot to take the contest to an extra end.

Paterson counted two stones at the 11th to win 7-5 and secure his team’s place in Helsingborg next month.

Edinburgh’s 2018 European champion Bruce Mouat missed out on the chance to defend his title after finishing bottom of the roundrobin rankings.

In Calgary, Eve Muirhead required all of her trademark resilience as she stayed on course to reach the quarter-finals of the Autumn Gold Classic yesterday.

Muirhead and teammates Vicky Wright, Jennifer Dodds and Lauren Gray lost 8-3 to defending champion Kerri Einarson after conceding five stones at the opening end, and history looked set to repeat itself in their next match against local skip Chelsea Carey.

The Scots again trailed 5-0 but this time fought back and eventually scraped through 7-6.

They face Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa next with Muirhead and Gray still mindful of their bronze medal play-off defeat to Fujisawa at last year’s Winter Olympics.

Glen Muirhead: Lost final in extra end.