Jacobs off to solid start at GSOC's HearingLife Tour Challenge

CHARLOTTETOWN — Canada’s Team Brad Jacobs is out to a strong start in the HearingLife Tour Challenge and is one victory away from qualifying for the quarterfinals.

Jacobs earned his second win with a 7-3 decision over Scotland’s Team Ross Whyte during Draw 5 action Wednesday morning at the Bell Aliant Centre.

The first Grand Slam of Curling event of the season features a triple-knockout bracket format, where teams must win three games before they lose three to advance to the playoffs. While Team Jacobs (2-0) stays in the A Event, Team Whyte (1-1) has dropped into the B Event brackets.

It’s also a homecoming event for Team Jacobs second Brett Gallant, who is originally from Charlottetown.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Gallant said. “It’s the first time I’ve gotten to play in a major competition in Charlottetown. You can tell there is a little bit of energy here for our team, which just feels great. I’ve seen a lot of familiar faces in the stands. It just feeds us a little bit more and we’re super excited to be here.

“The guys are loving the seafood meals and I’m trying to take them to all of the hot spots in Charlottetown.”

Although it was only their second game of the tournament and early in the morning, Gallant said the fans have been fantastic so far.

“Hopefully, we can keep it rolling here and we can get some games in on the weekend,” he said.

Gallant, lead Ben Hebert and third Marc Kennedy parted ways with skip Brendan Bottcher over the summer. The Calgary-based trio added Jacobs, from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., who Gallant said was leading the way for the team this game.

“He played great and made a couple of pistols,” Gallant said. “We kind of felt that, and we tried to play as good as we could in front of him.”

Jacobs broke a 1-1 tie in the third end as he chipped out Whyte’s frozen shot rock to score a deuce. Whyte then fell behind 4-1 as he attempted a double takeout to blank the fourth end, however, one of Jacobs’ counters failed to leave the house out the back door and stuck around for a stolen point.

Whyte recovered to close within one as he hit off one Jacobs stone and rolled across the house to tap back another and score a deuce.

It looked like Whyte had shot rock locked again in the sixth, but Jacobs managed to slash it out and count two more points. With Jacobs sitting three in the house during the seventh, Whyte could only remove two of them and conceded the single steal plus the game.

“It feels great,” Gallant said. “That’s a tough team and they’ve kind of had our team’s number a little bit over the last couple of years. We knew it was going to be a tough game and thought we all came out and was maybe one of our best games of the season so far.”

In the B Event, Switzerland’s Team Yannick Schwaller got into the win column with a 10-3 rout over Scotland’s Team Cameron Bryce.

Bryce scored three in the second for an early 3-1 lead, however, it was all Schwaller from there. Schwaller matched with three points in the third, stole back-to-back points in the fourth and fifth then swiped four more in the sixth to bring out the handshakes.

Scotland’s Team James Craik edged Team John Shuster of the United States 7-5 and Switzerland’s Team Michael Brunner beat Canada’s Team Reid Carruthers 6-5.

Schwaller, Craik and Brunner improved to 1-1 records to stay in the B Event. Bryce, Shuster and Carruthers dropped to 0-2 and into the last-chance C Event where another loss leads to elimination.

UP NEXT

Three more triple knockout draws are on tap Wednesday with Draw 6 at noon AT / 11 a.m. ET.

Broadcast coverage on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ begins Thursday at noon AT / 11 a.m. ET.

NOTES

The HearingLife Tour Challenge features 64 of the best men’s and women’s teams from around the world split into two tiers. … Tier 2 winners receive invitations to the WFG Masters in January. … Eight teams in each division qualify for Saturday’s quarterfinals. … The semifinals are also scheduled for Saturday with the finals set for Sunday.