 Northern Ontario's John Epping defeated Italy's Joel Retornaz 8-3 to advance to the playoffs at the Henderson Metal Fall Classic presented by Kioti Tractors of Ontario in Sault Ste. Marie. By Connor Simms, The squad from Sudbury, Ontario, John Epping with Jake Horgan at third, Tanner Horgan and Ian McMillan on the front end, are on a roll this season. They are at the Henderson Metal Fall Classic presented by Kioti Tractors of Ontario. After back-to-back wins on Thursday against Sandy MacEwan (Sudbury, NO) and Evan Van Amsterdam (Edmonton, AB). They advanced to the A-Qualifier on Friday evening versus Joel Retornaz (Trentino, ITA). Epping won the opening game, drawing to the button for the hammer. Epping scored 2 in the first end, and Retornaz responded in the second end, scoring 2. Epping scored a single in the third end, then forced Retornaz to a single in the fourth end. Epping scored 3 in the fifth end, then added a steal of 2 in the sixth end for the 8-3 win. That win clinches Epping a spot in the quarterfinals. Epping has made the playoffs in every event except the PointsBet Invitational, in which he was eliminated due to being the only top seed in each pool in the final. In the other A-Qualifier, Matt Dunstone (Winnipeg, MB) defeated Team Casper (Chaska, MN) 7-6. In other draw 6 action, they saw two C-side games, with Alex Champ (Toronto, ON) defeating Sandy MacEwan (Sudbury, NO) and Dustin Kalthoff (Saskatoon, SK) defeating Jongduk Park (Gangwon, KOR) 5-4. In B-Qualifier action earlier Saturday morning, Retornaz defeated Hoesli 6-1, Casper defeated Shinya Abe 6-2, and Carruthers defeated Sinnett 6-4. In the C-qualifiers, scheduled to begin at 2:00 pm Eastern Time (ET), Fournier will face Hoesli, Abe will face Van Amsterdam, and Young will face Sinnett. The quarterfinals will begin at 7:30 pm ET tonight, with the semi-finals and the finals happening on Sunday. Catch all of the action live on the curlingZOne YouTube page. Also, watch the linescores on the CurlingZone website. |
A five at the opening end of their first-ever match together in a major international competition sent Katie McMillan and Angus Bryce on their way to a dominant victory over the USA at the ACE & Company World Mixed Doubles Championships in Geneva.
