THUNDER BAY – John Epping has his squad right where he wants to be.
The Toronto skip, who has taken over throwing fourth stones for the former Team Horgan, on Wednesday cruised to his second straight win at the Northern Ontario Men’s Curling Championship, overcoming a slow start to knock Thunder Bay’s Dylan Johnston from the A-side bracket with a lopsided 11-4 win.
Epping, who scored a pair in the second to tie the match at two apiece, jammed up the rings in the third and stole four, then stole two more in the fourth to jump in front 8-2.
It was academic after that, the Sault Ste. Marie foursome slamming the door shut with another three in the sixth, the two teams shaking hands at that point.
“It was a little bit of a slow start. Then we made a good hit-and-roll, got a miss out of them in the second end and we were able to get the deuce. From there, we were able to control the game,” Epping said.
“That’s just how it goes sometimes. I got a little fooled in the first end with a spot on the ice, but overall we’re pretty happy with it.”
The good news for Team Epping, which also includes lead Ian McMillan, second Tanner Morgan and Jacob Horgan, is they’re just getting a feel for the ice.
That might be bad news for the rest of the 13-team field.
“We’ll take every win we can get, but mainly we’re just happy with the play so far,” Epping said.
The third end was the difference maker, he said.
“We really controlled the rock position there. (Dylan) actually got a little unlucky on his last one. I thought it might have caught something. But for the most part we really controlled rock placement. He was definitely in a world of hurt. Obviously when you take four, you really take control,” Epping said.
Johnston, nursing his first loss of the event, being played at the Port Arthur Curling Centre, dropped to the B-side bracket and will take on North Bay’s Jeff Brown, whose team includes Thunder Bay’s Bryan Burgess, on Friday afternoon.
It’s something to build on, Johnston said.
“It was a tough loss. We started out strong, had a good first end, a good second end. We just should have bailed on the third end sooner,” Johnston said.
“It was just a couple of missed shots and that was the game.”
The recovery process? That’s simple, Johnston said.
“We’ll go have a couple of beers and come back tomorrow and play like we can.”
It was a better result for Thunder Bay’s Brian Adams Jr., who dropped another Thunder Bay rink, skipped by Gary Weiss, to the last-chance C-side bracket with a 10-3 win, scoring five in the sixth to ice his opponent.
“We had a nice comeback last night against (Chris) Silver. That was a good boost for our team and we rolled right into today with that momentum,” Adams Jr. said.
The goal is to stay right where they are as long as possible.
“It’s good to keep rolling in B. We had a tough loss in Game 2, so it was our goal to bounce back and … we want to keep going with that.”
Brown and his opponent, Thunder Bay’s Zach Warkentin, were locked in a 1-0 game through three ends, but the North Bay skip managed to snag three in the fourth and stole one before the break to jump in front 5-1. Warkentin got one back in the sixth, but after giving up a deuce in the sixth, the writing was on the wall.
Warkentin will play the winner of the Frank Morissette/Brad Minogue match.
Defending champion Trevor Bonot lost 9-6 toSandy MacEwan, and will drop to B-side. .
