Hammer time

Their coach has a few more grey hairs than he did when the week began.

But Bruce Melville’s OK with that.

Melville’s foursome, led by skip Mike Pozihun, roared through the back end of the Northern Ontario men’s provincial curling championship, winning five of its last six games to clinch a berth in a Saturday tiebreaker against Thunder Bay's Mike Assad.

It’s win-or-go-home time, said Thunder Bay’s Pozihun, who guided his squad to a 9-2 triumph over Stratton’s Tim Nordin at Fort William Curling Club on Friday afternoon, pushing their record to 7-4 and a half game up on Copper Cliff’s Mike Jakubo.

Jakubo (7-4), who beat Pozihun 6-5 in an extra end earlier in the day, will meet the winner of the Assad/Pozihun match in the 3-4 Page Playoff on Saturday. Assad (7-4) lost his finale 7-6 to Sault Ste. Marie's Brad Jacobs (9-2) on Friday night.

“We thought 7-4 would get us in the playoffs and it’ll either get us a tiebreaker or into the playoffs depending on how tonight’s games go. So yeah, we’re pleased,” said Pozihun, who used steals of two in each of the fourth and fifth ends to break open a tight 2-1 game.

“It was a little sloppy game, but we prevailed and that’s all that matters.”

That’s pretty much how Joe Scharf (9-2) was feeling after pulling out a 6-3 win over Dustin Montpellier’s North Bay rink (2-9), pushing him into the 1-2 Page Playoff against Jabobs (9-2).

“Our number one goal this week was to try to get into the 1-2 Page game. The way things have gone the last day-and-a-half is not ideal, but like I said, we’ll take it and somehow we’ve just got to find a way to snap out of it and find our game again,” he said.

Scharf was referring to a pair of Thursday losses that temporarily knocked him out of first, and what he saw as a slow start against Montpellier.

“One thing we did well earlier in the week was that if one of us struggled we had three other guys picking him up,” Scharf said. “We’ve had a couple ends in the last two games where we’re grouping our misses and that’s not something we can do. We almost gave up a four-ender and we gave up a four-ender last night and those are things we can’t do.”

Scharf, who handed Jacobs his only defeat of the week until Friday, said he can’t afford any mistakes against the likes of the defending champion.

“We’ve got to bring our A game. We just have to try to find it again and see what happens. It’s there,” he said.

Scharf finished with a 7-4 win over former teammate Bryan Burgess, who ended the week on a four-game losing streak at 5-6.

Thunder Bay’s Jeff Currie (5-6) decided to play spoiler in his final match, pulling out a 6-5 squeaker over Jacobs.

The win, though virtually meaningless in the standings, caused a bit of a stir when Jacobs and teammate Ryan Harnden slammed their brooms in disgust -- Jacobs into the ice and Harnden into the stone -- after Jacobs crashed his final stone on a guard, handing the one-point win to Currie, who had shot stone on the button.

Both brooms shattered, and afterward a tournament official said he gave Jacobs, lead Scott Seabrook, second Ryan Harnden and third E.J. Harnden a warning.

A second occurrence would see the offending player tossed from the game.

The 1-2 Page Playoff between Jacobs and Scharf is scheduled for Saturday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. The loser will take on the winner of Saturday night's 3-4 Page Playoff in Sunday morning's semifinal.