With his last shot in the 10th end Saturday morning, there wasn’t a large hole to go through, but when you’re Kevin Koe you can find those holes.
Koe scored two with a brilliant double take out of two Brendan Bottcher stones to win the tiebreaker on the men’s side of the Home Hardware Canada Cup. He’ll face Brad Gushue (5-2) in Saturday afternoon’s semifinal.
“I was just hoping to have a shot and I’m not sure if he totally saw that one,” said Koe, referring to Bottcher, who added a guard to the mix with his last stone, sitting one in the house. “Just happy to have it and we’d thrown it quite a bit that game. I felt like I’d be close just because we knew what the ice would do. Obviously you’re not going to make that too often.”
The feeling was expressed best by Koe’s lead Ben Hebert who kicked the electric sign in celebration as the building erupted.
Being in a tiebreaker at a tough event like the Canada Cup didn’t take Koe by surprise.
“I don’t think you could ever be surprised to be in a tiebreaker at this event,” said Koe. “Just too many good teams to say ‘If we play good, we’ll be in the playoffs’. That’s not the most realistic here (with) some of the best teams in the world. At 4-2 maybe we thought we’d end up a little bit better… but it feels good to win a game, especially like that.”
The winner of the Koe-Gushue battle Saturday night will play Brad Jacobs (6-1) Sunday night in the final.
The other matches were all in the women’s division, where the playoffs were settled. Laura Walker (3-4) defeated Jennifer Jones (5-2) 7-5, Rachel Homan (5-2) defeated Alli Flaxey (2-5) 5-4, Casey Scheidegger (4-3) defeated Darcy Robinson (1-6) 8-7, and Kerri Einarson (6-1) defeated Chelsea Carey (2-5) 7-3.
With the win, Einarson clinches first place in the women’s side and goes straight through to the final at 2 p.m. Sunday.
“It’s nice to have that day off,” said Einarson, battling a cold. “We were on the ice today which is good so it’s not like we have a full day off the ice. But we needed that rest.”
Einarson and her team will be able to put up their feet while Homan and Jones battle in the semifinal at 7 p.m. Saturday.
“You definitely have just got to get some rest and recovery and it’s a long week, that’s for sure,” Einarson said.
