CurlingZone: Epping comes from behind to secure playoff spot

Sudbury's Team John Epping (Photo: Anil Mungal/GSOC) won an all-Canadian matchup to secure their spot in Saturday's quarterfinals.

By: Cameron Sallaj

It was a must win afternoon for John Epping and his Sudbury based team of Ian McMillan and Tanner and Jake Horgan. Through their first three games, the team sat 1-2 in the standings, however, with a shootout loss and four points. This meant a win would see them directly into the quarterfinals while a loss of any kind would eliminate them from the event.

Facing Saskatoon's Rylan Kleiter (0-3) in an all-Canadian battle, it was a suboptimal start for the Ontarians as they found themselves down 3-0 after two ends. They were able to score a deuce in the third end, though, found themselves down three again after Kleiter got two more in the fourth.

Heading to the second half, with their playoff hopes on the line, Team Epping found another gear. In the fifth, John made two perfect shots to remove all Kleiter's stone from the four foot and score four for his team, vaulting them into their first lead of the game.

From there, it was all Team Epping, with Kleiter never managing to find the scoreboard again. A single steal in the sixth was followed by a successful blank by Kleiter, who trailing by two in the eighth, weren't able to pull off the runback needed to force a shootout. This gave the Sudbury rink all three points from the match, and allowed to qualify outright for the playoff round.

Team Epping began the week in Tahoe with a 6-4 win over Team Jordon McDonald (Winnipeg, MB). They then lost 9-4 to Team Yannick Schwaller (Geneva, SUI) before dropping in a shootout to Team Kyle Waddell (Hamilton, SCO).

With seven points, Epping becomes the seventh team to qualify for the playoffs, joining Jacobs, Dunstone, Mouat, Schwaller, Waddell and Whyte. The final playoff spot will be decided by a tiebreaker between Joel Retornaz and Mike McEwen.

The next draw from the KIOTI GSOC Tahoe gets underway at 7:30 PM PT with Bruce Mouat and Jared Allen set for the Sportsnet featured game. All other games can be found on The Rock Channel or by clicking the red play buttons next to each game on CurlingZone.

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