Currie in tough

Jeff Currie’s got a tough task ahead of him if he wants his curling week to last beyond Friday.

Things got a little tougher for the Thunder Bay skip on Wednesday night after losing a hard-fought 9-7 decision to Bryan Burgess’ Fort William Curling Club squad, a loss that dropped Currie to 3-4 at the Northern Ontario provincial men’s championship.

Currie said he’s down, but not out at this stage of the tournament.

“We play all good teams. We tend to play better against better teams, so we just have to have no more losses,” said Currie, who’s late-end comeback fell one rock short of sending the contest to an extra end.

With four defeats to his name Currie and his teammates – lead Dylan Johnston, second Colin Koivula and third Brian Adams – the team is just one game out of the fourth and final playoff berth. The trouble is four other squads, including Thunder Bay’s Mike Pozihun and Mike Assad, own 4-3 records, meaning Currie has to string some wins together and hope for some help.

The team can’t afford another match like the one they put up against Burgess, though Currie said it was just a matter of not missing, not making, at opportune times.

“We missed the wrong shots, that’s all,” he said.

The first costly miss came in the second end.

With his final stone Currie was left with a freeze for two or a takeout for a possible three.

He chose the former option, but nudged Burgess’ rock a little too far, leaving him with a disappointing single.

In the third, after Burgess tapped his own rock into shot position in the back four-foot, with two other rocks in great shape in the house, Currie managed to split two of the three yellow stones, but couldn’t get the third, leaving Burgess with an easy tap for two and a 2-1 lead.

Currie’s next miss came in the fourth. With Burgess lying one at the top of the four foot, Currie missed a takeout opportunity with his first shot, allowing Burgess to throw up a cover at the top of the 12-foot. Currie was unable to complete the double takeout, giving his opponent a steal of one.

He rebounded in the fifth, making a draw to the four-foot to score two and tie the game 3-3, but Burgess got the points back in the sixth, pin-balling his final shot to nudge a second stone into scoring position.

Up 5-4 in the eighth he drew for three, putting the game just out of reach.

“We kept the pressure on them I think. We had a couple of misses both ways, but we got the big three in the eighth to go up by four. We gave it back to them, but we kept it clean in the last end,” said Burgess, who at 5-2 is in sole possession of third place behind Thunder Bay’s Joe Scharf (7-0) and Sault Ste. Marie’s Brad Jacobs (6-1).

“Our boys made some nice hit and rolls in there and they couldn’t find the line. Jeff’s last one just kind of hung out there and gave me a free draw for three and that pretty much was the difference.”

Currie scored three of his own in the ninth, but it’s as close as he’d get.

For Assad it was a matter of hanging on.

Up three after scoring a pair in the ninth against Dustin Montpellier (1-6), the veteran skip made some questionable shot calls in the 10th, leaving his opponent with a hit-and-roll for three to send the game to an extra end.

He was the first to admit he got a little lucky.

“Unfortunately they picked. They would have had to hit the inside of the rock and rolled them both in, which was a fairly easy shot, but a tough break for them,” said Assad, who sat out Tuesday’s match fighting illness.

At one game over .500, with four to play, Assad is relatively happy confident about his chances to advance to the playoffs.

“We control our own destiny still,” he said. “If we get all wins – or we might be able to drop one somewhere along the line – we’re definitely in there. It’s great to have control over what happens.”

Pozihun stole two in the second end to take an early 3-0 lead, then another in the seventh when Sudbury’s Robbie Gordon (1-6) had crept to within one. He scored two in the 10th to wrap up the 8-3 win.

In the only other Draw 11 match it was Geraldton’s John Salo over Sault Ste. Marie’s Mike Jakubo 7-5. Both rinks are 4-3.

Assad takes on Tim Nordin in Thursday’s early draw. Burgess plays Englehart’s Dave MacInnes, Scharf meets Gordon and Jacobs takes on Jakubo. A win for Scharf would clinch at least a tiebreaker.