MOOSE JAW -- Scotland’s Bruce Mouat is through to the playoff round at the BKT World Men’s Curling Championship
Mouat and his rink of third Grant Hardie, second Bobby Lammie and lead Hammy McMillan booked their spot with a 6-1 victory over Germany’s Marc Muskatewitz during Draw 18 action on Friday morning at Temple Gardens Centre in Moose Jaw.
Mouat improved to 8-3 with the victory and will finish in the top six, guaranteeing at least a quarter-final appearance with one game remaining for his rink in the 13-team tournament.
Scotland didn’t waste any time getting things going against Germany, scoring three in the first end. Muskatewitz blanked the next two ends before Mouat stole another in the fourth, and after another blank in the fifth, Germany was forced to take one in the sixth. Scotland picked up two more in the seventh and the teams shook hands.
China’s Xiaoming Xu kept his playoff hopes alive by improving to 7-4 with a 10-1 six-end win over Korea’s Hyojun Kim, while Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell did the same with an 8-2 win over Austria to also sit at 7-4.
Defending champion Sweden fell into the four-loss category after giving up three in the 10th to drop a 10-8 decision to Italy’s Joel Retornaz.
It continues to look as if four losses will be the cut-off point to make the playoffs, though five losses could bring the Draw Shot Challenge tiebreaker into play.
Canada’s Brad Jacobs became the first team to qualify for the playoffs on Thursday morning and can clinch first place with a win over Austria on Friday afternoon.
Standings after Draw 18 are as follows:
Canada (Jacobs) 9-1
Scotland (Mouat) 8-3
Switzerland (Schwaller) 7-3
China (Xu ) 7-4
Norway (Ramsfjell) 7-4
Sweden (Edin) 7-4
Czechia (Klima) 6-5
Italy (Retornaz) 5-6
United States (Dropkin) 4-6
Germany (Muskatewitz) 4-7
Japan (Yamaguchi) 4-7
Austria (Genner) 1-10
Korea (Kim) 1-10
You can follow along with how Canada does against Austria this afternoon and in their final round robin game against the United States on SportsCage.com’s live blog, and catch all the up to the minute scores on www.worldcurling.org.
