Carruthers beats McDonald to advance to Viterra final – Winnipeg Free Press

STONEWALL – The men's provincial curling semifinals in Manitoba came down to the wire.

Brad Jacobs, who missed Reed Carruthers, scored three goals and had to make a difficult double-double on his final rock to beat Assiniboine's Jordon MacDonald 10-7.

With the win, Carruthers advances to the finals against Fort Rouge's Braden Calvert at 2:30 p.m., with a chance to wear the Buffalo Jackets at the Brier.

“Yeah, it was a battle,” Jacobs said. “Those guys played very well. I didn't know they had it in them. Kudos to them, it's a hell of a team.”

MacDonald, 20, is 6-2 this week, with both of his losses coming against No. 1 seed Carruthers.

“I'm really proud of the kids for how the week went. It's a shame we lost here, but I thought we gave it our all. For them to throw the last stone, it's not easy, and I'm proud of that,” McDonald said.

McDonald, third Dallas Burgess, second Elias Huminicki and lead Cameron Olafson make up the junior team and will be favorites at the Manitoba Under-21 Championships in Carman later this month (Feb. 21-25).

“This will send our confidence through the roof. We know now that we can play with the best teams in the world. If we keep playing like this, we'll be very confident and hopefully that'll be good for us moving forward,” Macdonald said.

Macdonald is the reigning provincial junior champion and won bronze at last year's under-21 nationals.

“They do everything, like I said, a world-class junior team,” Jacobs said.

“They hurt us a lot. This team, I would say, plays above their age.”

Calvert is undefeated and 1-on-2 at Stonewall with an 8-7 win over Carruthers on Saturday night in a 2-on-1 playoff game.

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Taylor Allen
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Eighteen years old and still in high school, Taylor began working for the Free Press on June 1, 2011.

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