CurlingZone: Craik wins first title this season in Karlstad

Scotland's James Craik (Photo: Nordic Curling Tour) went undefeated to claim the Sun City Cup in a 28-team international field.

By: Cameron Sallaj

After falling out of the Grand Slam ranks earlier this season, James Craik and his young Scottish quartet of Mark Watt, Angus Bryce and Blair Haswell were back in top form this past weekend as they went undefeated to capture the Sun City Cup at the Karlstads Curlingklubb in Sweden.

Cruising through the round robin as the top seed, the Scottish rink representing Forfar advanced to the final with commanding 6-4 and 8-3 wins over Andreas Harstad and Kyle Waddell in the quarterfinals and semifinals respectively, never trailing in either game.

In the championship, it was more of the same for Craik's men who scored two in the first end and stole one in the second to lead Switzerland's Jan Iseli. After the Swiss rink managed a single in the fourth, the Scotts extended their lead with three points in the fifth for a 6-1 advantage.

The game was not over yet, however, as Iseli tacked two on the board in six and stole a deuce in the seventh to narrow the gap 6-5. Up one coming home with the hammer, Craik was able to count one to secure the championship for his team in a tight 7-5 match.

With the win, Team Craik earned $5,000 CAD and 30.000 ranking points, moving them up seven spots on the World Curling Team Rankings to 19th, just out of range of Grand Slam qualification. With only the top 12 qualifying for the year-end AMJ Campbell Players' Championship and no more events to earn points before the March 11 cutoff, it appears the Scotts will be on the outside looking in. A subpar season saw the team drop from 12th at the end of the 2023-24 season to 19th after only qualifying in five of twelve events.

Another team that is outside the top 12 for the first time in over a decade is Sweden's Niklas Edin who currently sits in 13th. Playing in their home club event, the Swedish Vikings led 5-2 in their quarterfinal against Kyle Waddell, however, got shutout the rest of the game, giving up four straight steals to lose 9-5. A win by Team Edin would have earned them enough points to surpass number twelve ranked Korey Dropkin but now they must hope a team ranked inside the top 12 declines to receive an invite to Toronto.

Team James Craik finished 3-0 in the 28-team qualifying round at the Sun City Cup. In their opening game, the team beat Kristian Lindstroem (Karlstad, SWE) 6-4 and then won 11-1 over Burak Aytac Atac (Ankuva, TUR). In their final qualifying game, Team Craik doubled up on Jacob Schmidt (Hvidovre, DEN) 6-3, ensuring the top seed heading into the playoff round.

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