Northern Ontario curlers in heart of playoff mix

Carl Levesque and his crew are in the thick of the playoff hunt at the Canadian Wheelchair Curling Championship.

The Thunder Bay skip split his Wednesday matches, downing Saskatchewan 7-6 in the afternoon draw before falling 8-7 to Nova Scotia in the evening, despite a five-ender midway through the match.

At 4-2, Team Northern Ontario is in a log-jam in second place at the event, being staged this week at the Fort William Curling Club.
Five teams are tied in the runner-up position, trailing the lead horse from Alberta.

Levesque, lead Sharon LaFroye, second Mel Prairie and third Rick Bell jumped ahead of Saskatchewan 5-0, the key end being the third when they stole a trio of points.

But the western squad, skipped by Darwin Bender, found its game in the back half of the match, collecting its first point in the fifth, then stealing a pair in six and three more in seven to go up 6-5.

Levesque worked his magic in the eighth and final end, picking up the pair he needed with the hammer to capture the game.

Nova Scotia's Richard Brown turned the tide on the Northern Ontarians later in the day. The Maritimers were up 5-0 after three before Levesque engineered the rare five-point end to tie the match. Nova Scotia scored a single in the fifth and stole another point in the seventh, only to have Levesque knot the match 7-7 with two in the seventh.

However Brown took the hammer in the eighth and got his point to capture the match.

Northern Ontario will battle Alberta for first place in Thursday's morning draw, then takes on Quebec in its penultimate round-robin match at 2:30 p.m.

The top four teams make the playoffs.