 Winnipeg's Matt Dunstone (photo: Stan Fong, Hardline Curling) began play with a 6-1 over Switzerland's Michael Brunner as they continue to work through mechanics changes. ---------------------- Fans can watch every game from this week's Nufloor Penticton Curling Classic, hosting by the Penticton Curling Club in Penticton, British Columbia. CurlingZone has added playlist for every team playing in this week's event to a Youtube playlist to make it easy to find their favourite team's games. CLICK HERE to be redirected to CurlingZone's Youtube page. ----------------------- The members of Team Dunstone made some slight changes to their deliveries this season. The moves are paying off with solid results over the first half of the 2023-24 campaign. Lead Ryan Harnden said the team spent time this fall working on trying to throw the rock in the same fashion. "Some of us have had to make a little bit more of an adjustment than others," he said. "But we're all putting in the work and trusting the process. It's just more so our starting positions - getting them all the same - so our rocks are coming out on identical lines." Dunstone made quick work of Switzerland's second-ranked squad of Bern, Brunner sitting 15th on the World Curling Federation rankings, stealing one in the first end, then scoring three in the third end and stealing two more in the fourth end en-route to a 6-1 win. The Winnipeg-based team of Harnden, skip Matt Dunstone, third B.J. Neufeld and second Colton Lott entered this week's NuFloors Penticton Curling Classic with a 17-6 record. Dunstone beat Italy's Joel Retornaz to win the Soo Curlers Fall Classic presented by Kioti Tractors a month ago after finishing second at the PointsBet Invitational in late September. Dunstone's rink currently holds the ninth position in the latest rankings, however the team is only counting five of a possible six events, so every point earned in Penticton will be added to the count at the end of the weekend. A total of 30 teams will play in the $100,000 competition at the Penticton Curling Club, including rinks skipped by Brendan Bottcher, Reid Carruthers, John Epping, Glenn Howard, Mike McEwen and Kevin Koe. International entries include Switzerland's Michael Brunner, American John Shuster, Switzerland's Marco Hoesli, South Korea's Jongduk Park and Japan's Riku Yanagisawa. Dunstone is looking to bounce back after missing the playoffs at 2-2 at this month's Grand Slam of Curling's Kioti National. "We're excited to get back out there," he said. "We had a little bit of a slip-up at our last event so we're looking to clean that up a little bit and make a deep run here. "It's another strong field." Now in Year 2 as a foursome, Dunstone said the more guesswork that can be eliminated on the ice, the better. "The whole idea about what we're trying to do is just have that rock in the same starting point from the hack," he said. "From there, we're rotating our body in the direction that we want to go but that rock is always staying in the same position in the ice." Harnden said even slight changes can take time to perfect. "I made an adjustment with my outturn of maybe moving the rock over two or three inches and it feels like I've moved the rock over a foot," he told CurlingZone in a recent interview. "I've gotten quite comfortable with it and used to it now because I've been using the laser and trusting everything. "But at first it feels like quite a big difference, especially when you've been having that rock position for the majority of your career." Dunstone's side contiues with their second game on Thursday evening against Vancouver's Jeff Berg. A matchup against local team Cameron de Jong is set for Friday at 3:30 pm Pacific time, followed by a meeting against John Epping (Toronto, ON) on Saturday at 8:30am and Brent Pierce (New Westminster, BC) at 7 pm. Dunstone has a career record of 25 wins and 12 losses in this his 6th appearances at the Nufloors Penticton Curling Classic, where competition continues through Monday. "We know what this team has and (we) continue to layer on the stuff that we do well," Dunstone said. |
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World number three ranked Gyeonggi Province's Gim Eun-ji (Photo: Curling1spoon) defend their national title in a thrilling extra end final Monday in Uijeongbu.
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