Cameron Bryce's Scots seal play-off place in Korea

Cameron Bryce's Scottish team have grabbed a place in today's play-offs at the VoIP Defender World Junior Curling Championships in Korea. A dramatic extra-end 9-8 win over Canada sealed their place.

The Scots gave themselves a dream start to the game, stealing two shots in the first end and then three shots in the third to take an early 5-2 lead.

Canada blanked the fourth end and scored two shots in the fifth, putting the teams into the break with Scotland holding a 5-4 lead. And they moved that to 7-4 in the sixth when a good double take-out by third player Robin Brydone set his team up.

In the seventh Canada reduced the Scottish lead to 7-6. The Scots blanked the eighth and then scored one in the ninth. In the tenth, Bryce failed with a straight run-back attempt and this let Canada score two shots and level the game at 8-8. But in the extra end, the Scots made no mistake and scored the one point need to put them into the play-offs.

Korea ended up topping the group, with USA, Scotland, Canada and Norway all finishing on the same record of won six, lost three. Korea will now face USA in the top play-off game, while Scotland will be up against the winner of a tie-breaker between Canada and Norway.

Bryce said: “We started really well, scoring a two in the first end and putting the pressure on from there. There was a lot at stake. This is my last year of juniors too, so I didn’t want that to be my last game.”

Having sat out their last session and finishing the round-robin at the top of the rankings, Sophie Jackson’s Scotland women’s team were already in the page play-offs and will meet Sweden this afternoon.