A pair of steals proved to be the difference for Brad Jacobs on Sunday afternoon.
Back-to-back steals in the fourth and fifth ends helped Team Jacobs to a 3-1 win over Niklas Edin of Sweden in the men’s final at the National, the latest Grand Slam of Curling event, held in Conception Bay South, Nfld.
Edin opened the game with the hammer and blanked the first three ends before Jacobs got on the board in the fourth.
With Jacobs sitting three after a draw with his final shot, Edin was short on his to give the Sault rink the lead.
After Jacobs extended the lead in five, Edin got on the board with a single in the sixth end.
After scoring in the seventh end to take a 3-1 lead, Jacob ran Edin out of rocks in the eighth end to cap off the win.
“We really did a good job of regrouping after the Canada Cup talking about the mistakes that we made and making corrections between then and now,” Jacobs said in an interview with Jonathan Brazeau of TheGrandSlamOfCurling.com. “I’m really proud of the guys. How well they played, how well they hung in there all week, their mental toughness, their patience and just full credit to Ryan, E.J. and Marc. They made my job look easy at skip. I was just doing everything I could to keep up with them and not let them down, to be honest, because they were playing so great in front of me. Full credit to the guys and we’re ecstatic with this win.”
Sunday’s win is the second Grand Slam win of the season for the Jacobs rink, which includes third Marc Kennedy, second E.J. Harnden, and lead Ryan Harnden.
Jacobs won the Tour Challenge in November.
Jacobs used an extra end steal to beat Edmonton’s Brendan Bottcher in quarterfinal action on Saturday before beating Brad Gushue of St. John’s, Nfld. in semifinal action on Saturday evening.
Edin advanced to the final thanks to a quarterfinal win over Mike McEwen of Winnipeg before beating Bruce Mouat of Scotland in the semifinal.