It was dramatic, but Brad Jacobs picked up his third consecutive Grand Slam of Curling title on Sunday afternoon.
Jacobs made a draw in the eighth end to beat Toronto’s John Epping 6-5 in the final of the Canadian Open in Yorkton, Sask. Sunday to become one of six teams to have won three Grand Slam tournaments in a row.
With Epping having shot rock, Jacobs’ draw in the eighth was nearly heavy, stopping just in time to give the Jacobs rink the victory.
“When I let it go, I liked it,” Jacobs told Sportsnet of the eighth end draw. “It’s great to be in a tight game like this. It doesn’t always have to be pretty. Both teams struggled with the ice a bit, their team earlier and our team later.”
The Jacobs rink, which includes third Marc Kennedy, second E.J. Harnden, and lead Ryan Harnden, went unbeaten at the six-day, triple knockout event.
Jacobs went 3-0 in the A Bracket of the event, beating Glenn Howard (Penetanguishene, Ont.), Yannick Schwaller (Bern, Switzerland), and Korey Dropkin (Chaska, USA) to book an early spot in the playoff round and have Friday off ahead of quarterfinal action.
Jacobs then beat Howard 6-4 in quarterfinal action and advanced to the final thanks to a 6-3 win over Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen in semifinal action on Saturday night.
Against Epping, Jacobs opened the scoring with the hammer in the opening end, scoring a pair to take the early lead.
After blanking the second end, Epping looked to clear a pair of Jacobs rocks in the third end to score three and take the lead. Instead, Epping jammed the initial Jacobs rock on one of his own in the back of the house and rolled over top of the other Jacobs rock, leaving the Sault rink with a steal of two and a 4-0 lead through three ends.
Epping would get on the board with a single in the fourth end, but Jacobs took a 5-1 lead with a draw for one in the fifth end.
In the sixth end, Epping cut the lead to 5-3 with a pair and proceeded to tie the game with a steal of two in the seventh end to set up the eighth end dramatics.
Jacobs called it “pretty special” to be one of the six teams to win three straight Grand Slams.