Koe beats Gushue to lock up playoff berth at Grand Slam of Curling National

CONCEPTION BAY SOUTH, N.L. — Calgary's Kevin Koe clinched a playoff berth at the National with a 6-3 victory over Brad Gushue of St. John's, N.L., on Friday night in the final round-robin game for both teams.

Gushue had already qualified for the weekend's playoffs. He and Koe finished the preliminary round of the Grand Slam of Curling tournament with 3-1 records.

Brad Jacobs, Niklas Edin and Brendan Bottcher also qualified for the playoffs with 3-1 records. 

Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., topped Yuta Matsumura of Japan 4-3 to cap his round-robin schedule while Sweden's Edin beat Edmonton's Bottcher 6-1.

Jacobs plays Bottcher, Gushue faces Peter de Cruz of Switzerland and Koe takes on Bruce Mouat of Scotland in Saturday's quarterfinals.

Edin will play the winner of a tiebreaker between Winnipeg's Mike McEwen and Ross Paterson of Scotland. The tiebreaker goes Saturday morning.

The women played their tiebreakers Friday night.

Satsuki Fujisawa of Japan beat Kerri Einarson of Gimli, Man., 3-2 to advance while Robyn Silvernagle of North Battleford, Sask., downed Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland 9-3.

Fujisawa will take on No. 1 seed Elena Stern of Switzerland while Silvernagle faces No. 2 seed Tracy Fleury of East St. Paul, Man., in the women's quarterfinals. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 13, 2019.

The Canadian Press

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