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Scharf in final

Thunder Bay hasn’t sent anyone to the Brier in eight years.
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Joe Scharf of Thunder Bay will play his fourth Northern Ontario men's curling championship final in 10 years on Sunday. (Leith Dunick, tbnewswatch.com)
Thunder Bay hasn’t sent anyone to the Brier in eight years.

Joe Scharf is a win away from ending the drought after knocking off Northern Ontario provincial men’s curling champion Brad Jacobs on Saturday for the second time this week, ending it after scoring a single point in the ninth end to go up 7-4.

The win earned he and teammates Gary and Rob Champagne and Mike McCarville a direct pass to Sunday afternoon’s final, his fourth trip to the championship game, third as a team skip. 

He wants to get the job done this time around, after losing to Robbie Gordon in Nipigon in 2006 and Eric Harnden – whose sons E.J. and Ryan are on Team Jacobs – in Enhglehart in 2008. He was a member of Al Hackner’s 2001 championship team, but not as skip.

He hopes to use his experience to his advantage – though both potential opponents, including Jacobs, the defending champion, have been to the Brier in the past.

“I think maybe somebody who hasn’t been in this position before it’s a new experience. I’ve been in my fair share of provincial finals, but to me it’s just another game. We just have to go out and play our game like we’ve been playing and hope for the best,” Scharf said.

Third McCarville, who played lead for Scharf in 2006 and 2008, said this is just where they wanted to be on Saturday night.

“Just one more game tomorrow,” he said.

It certainly wasn’t as easy as it looked, even as they opened up a 6-2 lead through seven ends.

“We had control, but we had a break or two along the way and we just capitalized on it. That was it, we just never looked back,” McCarville said.

It helped that Scharf was making just about every shot that came his way, and the ones they missed often wound up a good Plan B.

“That’s our game plan, to keep things pretty simple and just try to execute a deuce here and there and just play the scoreboard. That’s our game and that’s how it worked out today.”

Scharf scored two in the opening end, slashing Jacobs’ stones out from a difficult angle and hung around, scoring an unlikely deuce.

After forcing Jacobs to take an unwanted point in the second, the two clubs blanked the third and traded points in the fourth and fifth, giving Scharf the hammer back to start the sixth.

Jacobs, who didn’t curl as well as he did all week in finishing 9-2 during the round robin, got a little unlucky in the decisive end.

Scharf missed his first shot, leaving himself open on the button, but Jacobs couldn’t remove them both, leaving a double for Scharf to score two.

He made the shot and took a three-point lead into seven.

Jacobs had a chance to score two in the end, but his first shot was heavy. Then he jammed on his own stone going for a double takeout, and instead of two or possibly three in his favour he gave up one to the opposition.

“It completely didn’t go our way,” said Jacobs. “They made everything, we missed a few shots and you’re going to lose a game when that happens.”

Jacobs scored two in the eighth to narrow the gap, but when Scharf put up a single in the ninth they shook hands.

“Sometimes things just click and it just seemed to go our way right from the beginning. I think a lot of that is just execution. You start making shots and you build momentum and confidence and kind of run with it,” Scharf said.

Jacobs will play Sunday’s semifinal against Thunder Bay’s Mike Assad, who scored once in the 10th end to edge Copper Cliff's Mike Jakubo 7-6 in the 3-4 Page Playoff.



Leith Dunick

About the Author: Leith Dunick

A proud Nova Scotian who has called Thunder Bay home since 2002, Leith is Dougall Media's director of news, but still likes to tell your stories too. Wants his Expos back and to see Neil Young at least one more time. Twitter: @LeithDunick
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