Sault Ste. Marie’s Brad Jacobs and his team from the Community First Curling Centre is one win away from returning to the Tim Hortons Brier as Team Northern Ontario.
The Jacobs rink, which includes third Marc Kennedy, second E.J. Harnden, and lead Ryan Harnden, wrapped up round robin action at the 2020 Northern Ontario Curling Association provincials in New Liskeard with a 7-0 record thanks to a 7-3 win in eight ends on Saturday afternoon against Jordan Chandler.
The two teams traded singles in the opening four ends with Jacobs opening the scoring with a steal in the first end.
With the score tied at two, Jacobs blanked the fifth end before taking the lead for good with three in the sixth end.
After Chandler scored one in the seventh end to make the score 5-3, Jacobs capped off the scoring with a pair in the eighth end.
The loss left Chandler, who splits time between the Little Current Curling Club and the Port Arthur Curling Club in Thunder Bay, with a 4-3 record to end the round robin and a spot in the tiebreaker game on Saturday evening against Mike Badiuk of the Geraldton Curling Club.
The winner of that game will advance to Sunday morning’s semifinal game against Sandy MacEwan of Curl Sudbury.
MacEwan earned a spot in the semifinal thanks to a 5-2 record in the round robin.
Charlie Robert, also curling out of the Community First Curling Centre locally, wrapped up round robin action with a 1-6 record after falling 8-3 in five ends to Badiuk.
The Robert rink, which includes third Matthew Hunt, second Stephen Meunier, and lead Joshua Vanderburg, got on the board with a steal of one in the opening end to take the early lead.
Badiuk scored a pair in the second before stealing one in the third to take a 3-1 lead only to see Robert score two in the fourth to even the game at three.
Badiuk proceeded to seal the win with five in the fifth end to take the win.
Nick Lemieux, also of Sault Ste. Marie, wrapped up the round robin on Saturday with a 7-3 win over Ryan Sayer of the Horne Granite Curling Clun in New Liskeard.
The Lemieux rink, which includes third Jacob Reid, second Andrew Berg, and lead Dan Lemieux, finished the round robin with a 2-5 record.
Sayer opened the scoring with a steal of one in the opening end though Lemieux would get on the board with a single of his own in the second.
After Lemieux stole one in the fourth end, Sayer evened things up at two in the fifth.
The teams would trade singles in the sixth and seventh ends before Lemieux would take the lead for good with a pair in the eighth end.
Lemieux then sealed the win by stealing one in each of the final two ends.