Jacobs rink in good shape heading into last day of round robin at curling trials

Brad Jacobs is in a strong position heading into the final day of round robin action at the 2021 Tim Hortons Curling Trials in Saskatoon this week.

The Jacobs rink sits at 5-1 thanks to a 7-2 win in eight ends over Calgary’s Kevin Koe on Thursday afternoon at SaskTel Place.

Team Jacobs, which includes third Marc Kennedy, second E.J. Harnden, and lead Ryan Harnden, sits in second in the nine-team men’s event with a pair of games remaining in the round robin.

After blanking the opening end, Jacobs got on the scoreboard in the second with a pair after a hit and stick with his final shot.

Jacobs then limited Koe to one in the third end.

Koe proceeded to force Jacobs to a single on a draw in the fourth end before stealing one in the fifth to go up 4-1.

Koe cut into the lead with a single in the sixth, making a tough shot on his last shot of the end to make if 4-2.

In the seventh end, Jacobs removed a Koe rock from the house and scored three to extend the lead to 7-2.

In the eighth end, Koe looked to plan an in-off to score two, but gave up a steal of one in the end.

After dropping a 7-6 decision to Brad Gushue of St. John’s, Nfld. on Tuesday, the Jacobs rink has won two straight.

In interviews with Curling Canada, both Jacobs and Kennedy said struggling at a Grand Slam of Curling event prior to the Trials was a good thing for the team.

“I think the event that we played in before the Trials, at Chestermere (Alberta), where we got our butts handed to us, sometimes those are the best things for a team,” Jacobs said. “We’ve always been a pretty resilient group and we’ve proven that. We took what we learned from that event, and from others in the past and brought it all together so far this week.” 

“We were playing pretty good, but we were getting quite a few misses from other teams and at Chestermere it was teams playing really well against us,” Kennedy also said. “We knew we need to pick up our game, we need to prepare hard and we have to realize this is not going to come easy. It really put the focus on those 10 days in between to make sure we prepared as well as we could.” 

Jacobs will play a pair of games on Friday, facing Mike McEwen in the morning draw at 10 a.m. Sault time before playing Tanner Horgan in the evening draw at 8 p.m.