Hometown favourite Jim Cotter was 7-0 but he definitely wasn’t taking the tourist route going into draw eight Thursday night in the Canadian Direct Insurance B.C. Men’s Curling Championships in Vernon.
Former provincial winner Sean Geall of Langley – with shot rock – tried a single-raise takeout for a deuce but his attempt over curled and left Cotter with a steal of one for a 6-4 victory. Cotter has won four one-point games.
“It seems like the whole week we’ve had to grind out every win which I think is good for us,” said Cotter’s lead Rick Sawatsky, a 1994 VSS grad who played junior curling in Vernon. “We’re playing well, but there’s still room for improvement and we’re just trying to escalate our game going into the weekend hopefully.”
Second Kevin Folk is a regular with Cotter and part-time super sub Ken Maskiewich is back for the provincials.
“We’re a pretty laid-back bunch of guys and it’s pretty easy to fit in with us and we’re real lucky to have a guy like Ken, just a phenomenal player and a really great guy to come in (from New Westminster) and help us out here.”
Cotter, 36, faced defending champion Jeff Richard of Kelowna Thursday night. Richard was 6-1.
“There are no easy ones with this field, for sure,” said Cotter, moments after beating Geall. “We just have to grind it out and we pulled it through. It (Geall’s final stone) was no gimme shot that’s for sure. It just came out a little tight and we happened to score a point there.”
“We’ve played with lots of different guys this year. Fortunately, we’ve had a guy like Ken Maskiewich available. He’s played phenomenal for our team and he fits right in with the same mentality and so forth so it’s worked out well.”
