The top four seeds have advanced to play the first two playoff qualifier games in the triple knock-out CurlManitoba Bunge Provincial Men’s Championship underway in Selkirk.
The four have won their first two games in the competition. A Reid Carruthers (Granite) vs Brett Walter (Assiniboine Memorial) game and a Jordon McDonald (Assiniboine Memorial) vs Braden Calvert (Heather) match-up will be the feature attractions on the Friday 8:30AM draw. The winners will be the first qualifiers into the six-team playoff round.
Top-seeded Reid Carruthers (BJ Neufeld, Catlin Schneider, Connor Njegovan, Alternate Kyle Doering, Coach Rob Meakin) advanced with an extra end win over Andrew Wickman (Fort Rouge) and a last stone four-foot draw win over Jace Freeman (Virden).
Second-seed Jordon McDonald – Assiniboine Memorial (Jacques Gauthier, Elias Huminicki, Cam Olafson, Coach Bryan Miki) posted preliminary wins over Derrick Anderson (Gimli) and Kelly Marnoch (Carberry).
The first two wins for third-seed Braden Calvert (Corey Chambers, Kyle Kurz, Brendan Bilawka, Alternate Rob Gordon) came over Stefan Gudmundson (Steinbach) and Steve Irwin (Brandon).
Fourth-seed Brett Walter (Julien Leduc, Graham McFarlane, Hugh McFarlane) had their two victories over Marcus Titchkosky (Morden) and #5 seed Tanner Lott (Fort Rouge).
The losers of the Carruthers-Walter and McDonald-Calvert games will drop into B-Side qualifying games at 4PM Friday. The four other teams still alive on that B-Side are Irwin, Marnoch, Freeman, and Lott.
Eight teams will also play Friday in C-Side elimination games. The first four teams eliminated from the new triple knock-out event on Thursday were Gudmundson, Ryan Hyde and Brett Moxham (Portage), and Cory Naharnie (Granite).