Tie breakers will be needed to decide the 2019 Senior Men’s Curling Championship semifinal, while on the women’s side Teams Deputan and Cowan advance to the semis with the winner playing the unbeaten Richter rink in the final.
Team Ken Lepine led all men’s teams at 5-1 heading into Friday’s seventh draw, but four teams were tied for second place at 4-2 leaving the seventh and final draw decisively riveting.
The Castlegar/Trail team skipped by Bill van Yzerloo won its final two games against Teams Doug Marshall and Rob Koffski to earn a playoff berth with a 5-2 record.
Craig beat Team Wright, 6-3, to advance while Marshall squeaked out a 5-4 win over Macdonald for a berth in the playoffs.
However, the other Kootenay team, led by Tom Buchy, played spoiler, beating the first-place Lepine rink 7-4 to drop them to 5-2 along with van Yzerloo, Marshall, and Wes Craig.
With all four teams tied with 5-2 records, seedings were decided by a cumulative total of measurements of draws to the button, which decides who wields hammer before each game. When the final results came in Lepine earned the top seed, with van Yzerloo taking second place.
As a result, the third and fourth seeds, Craig and Marshall rinks, play tomorrow at 9 a.m. with the winner playing the second seed, van Yzerloo, in the semifinal at 2 p.m. Saturday.
On the ladies side, Deputan plays Cowan in Saturday’s semifinal, the winner taking on Richter at 11 a.m. Sunday.
The drama continues at the Trail Curling Club on Saturday with the tie-breaker going at 9 a.m. and the semifinals at 2 p.m.
Finals go at 11 a.m. on Sunday. Admission is free.
