Jamie King of St. Albert and Calgary’s Matthew Blandford were the first men’s teams to qualify for the playoffs in the HDF Insurance Shoot-Out at the Saville Community Sports Centre.
King, who has replaced former world champions Blake MacDonald and Scott Pfeifer with Warren Hassell and Glen Kennedy this season (with Jeff Erickson moving up to third), scored two in the third end and three more in the fifth to cruise to a 5-3 victory over Brendan Bottcher in an A Event qualifier at the 16-team, triple-knockout event.
Meanwhile, Blandford, who had a good run at last season’s Alberta men’s curling championship at Lacombe until losing the Page Playoff A-B game to Kevin Martin and the semifinal to eventual champion Kevin Koe, scored the winning point in the eighth end to edge Mick Lizmore 5-4 in the other A final.
Aaron Sluchinski will play Lizmore while Brock Virtue’s new Calgary rink takes on Bottcher in the two B Event finals at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, with four teams advancing out of the C Event at 1 p.m. The quarter-finals start at 8:30 p.m. Saturday.
In the 24-team women’s competition, reigning Alberta women’s champ Val Sweeting and a pair of Swiss rinks – Michele Jaggi of Bern and Alina Paetz of Baden Regio – are the only rinks still unbeaten. All are 4-0 in the four six-team round-robin pools heading into Saturday’s final draw at 9:30 a.m.
After winning her first three games on Thursday, Sweeting defeated Chantelle Eberle of Regina
6-4 in her only action Friday while Jaggi doubled up Delia DeJong of Grande Prairie 6-3 before scoring three in the seventh end to steal the winning point in the eighth to edge Nicky Kaufman 6-5. Paetz had to go to an extra end to edge Trish Paulsen of Saskatoon 7-6 in her second game Friday.
Former Canadian champion Heather Nedohin, 3-1, lost her first game Friday night 8-2 to Brett Barber of Biggar, Sask. Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge finished with a 4-1 record while Chelsea Carey, Kristie Moore and Susan O’Connor of Calgary are all 3-1.
The women’s quarter-finals also start at 8:30 p.m. Saturday.
