By Nathan Kanter

Laycock faces elimination after second loss

Jan 4, 2017 | 5:34 PM

The Meridian Canadian Open’s fourth draw saw two teams improve to 2-0 and resulted in one Saskatchewan team facing elimination.

Steve Laycock had trouble with Winnipeg’s Reid Carruthers, falling 8-3, which means the Saskatoon skip now can’t afford another loss or he’ll be eliminated from the tournament. He can still make it to the finals, as long as he keeps winning.

Laycock said having to win out or have his tournament come to an end doesn’t really change his team’s preparation.

“You try and approach every game the same way,” he said. “Obviously the urgency is there a bit more but we approach every game like we need to win it. We just need to battle. We were deep in this event last year in the triple knockout and we ended up making playoffs.

“We’ve just got to draw on that experience. We’re going to have to beat some good teams. We’ve run into two teams that have played pretty well against us so we’re going to have to up our game to make sure we can match that.”

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Last year, team Laycock didn’t lose their first two games, but they did find themselves in the ‘C’ semi, which is exactly where they will be if they win their next game.

“Not that the games get easier, but you’re going to be playing teams that are also going to be struggling once you get to the ‘C’ side,” he said. “That’s one good part about the triple knockout versus the round robin – is you’re probably not going to walk out and play a 2-0 or a 3-0 team these next games because that just can’t happen.”

Laycock will face the loser of Heath McCormick and John Morris, who face off Thursday morning at 11:30 a.m.

Trending upward after their second straight wins of the tournament are Minnesota’s John Shuster and Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni. Both stay in the ‘A’ bracket on the men’s and women’s side, respectively.

Shuster won 5-3 over Edmonton’s Brendan Bottcher while Tirinzoni won 7-5 over Allison Flaxey of Caledon, Ont.

Getting some rest during the holidays was a key for team Shuster.

“I’d definitely say we’re seeing the dividends paying off for the little bit of rest we got,” Shuster said. “We just made shots – a lot of shots – and felt like we had decent control both those games.

“When somebody missed a shot we picked them up.”

Shuster said consistency is something they want to keep working on.

“We’ve had a pretty tough Grand Slam season here so far,” he said. “To get two pretty big wins and get ourselves a few chances to get into the playoffs is just something we really want to do.

“We’re just going to keep the level up and get into the playoffs.”

Two teams also hit the ice for the first time on Wednesday afternoon, with Winnipeg’s Mike McEwan taking down Vernon B.C.’s John Morris 5-3.

McEwan faces Sweden’s Niklas Edin Wednesday night, the winner of whom will face off against Shuster in the ‘A’ bracket.

To round things out, Keri Einarson of Winnipeg has put Tracy Fleury of Sudbury to the brink of elimination, after Einarson won 5-2 over Fleury.

Fleury faces the loser of the game between Jennifer Jones and Chelsea Carey, who play Thursday at 8 a.m.

Nathan Kanter is a reporter with battlefordsNOW and voice of the Battlefords North Stars. He can be reached at Nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11