Curling: Scots’ wins takes them into play-off

TOM Brewster’s Scotland team sealed a place in curling’s Page first versus second play-off game against table-toppers Canada with two wins yesterday, at the World Men’s Championship in Basel, Switzerland, following up a 9-6 victory over the Czech Republic with an 8-6 win over the USA.

These games concluded the Scots’ round-robin campaign on eight wins and three losses – the same as Norway – but Scotland are ranked second as they beat Norway in their head-to-head.

The Scots started well against USA and were 5-0 up after just three ends, but they hit a sticky patch in the middle of the game when USA closed to just 4-5 down. Eventually, in the ninth, skip Brewster drew for two points and an 8-5 lead, and although USA got one point back in the tenth, it was not enough and Scotland recorded their eighth win of the week.

“It’s a tough slog out there. We got five up, but that ice is tough to hit on, you couldn’t put the brush down,” said Brewster.

Earlier, against the Czechs, the Scots took the lead in the third end and were never headed, scoring two in the ninth end and a single in the tenth for their win when Czech skip Jiri Snitil failed in a difficult attempt to level the game.