CurlingZone: Bonot steals win from Bottcher for 3-1 record

After three upsets Monday morning, Northern Ontario's Trevor Bonot (Photo: Curling Canada) continued the trend in Draw 8.

By: Cameron Sallaj

Monday afternoon's Pool A draw saw a battle between two teams at the top of the standings. Alberta's Brendan Bottcher rink was looking to stay undefeated and improve to 4-0 while Northern Ontario's Trevor Bonot tried to even both the teams' records to 3-1.

Starting the with hammer, Team Bottcher, with third Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant and lead Ben Hebert blanked the first end before taking a count of two in the second end. Despite this, a mistake by Bottcher on his first rock of the third allowed the Thunder Bay rink of Bonot, Mike McCarville, Jordan Potts and Kurtis Byrd to set up for two to tie the score at two all headed to four.

Another blank by Bottcher kept the teams tied headed to five. There, Bottcher executed a perfect soft weight hit on his last, giving his Alberta rink two and the lead halfway through the match.

Into the second half, the two rinks forced each other to singles in six and seven with Team Bottcher remaining two points ahead. Alberta then forced Northern Ontario again in the eighth to just one point, giving them a 5-4 edge with the hammer with two ends left to play.

Facing two on his last stone of the ninth, Trevor Bonot made a perfect double takeout and roll. Attempting the double back on his last, Bottcher only got one of the rocks go to with Northern Ontario taking a steal of one and tying the game heading into ten.

In the last end, Bonot again faced two Bottcher rocks on his final stone but was able to remove both of them. Facing one Northern Ontario counter in the top eight, Bottcher needed a draw to the four-foot for the win. His draw came up short of the rings, however, giving NO another steal and the victory 6-5.

In other Draw 8 scores, Ontario's Scott Howard (Penetanguishene) even his record to 2-2 with a 7-3 win over Newfoundland and Labrador's Andrew Symonds (0-4; St. John's). British Columbia's Catlin Schneider (2-2; Victoria) beat New Brunswick's James Grattan (0-3; Oromocto) 6-3 while Manitoba's Matt Dunstone (2-1; Winnipeg) downed the Yukon's Thomas Scoffin (1-2; Whitehorse) 15-2.

Mantioba's Reid Carruthers rink was idle in Draw 8 and still leads the pool with three straight wins. Bottcher and Northern Ontario are tied for second now at 3-1 while Dunstone trails by one game at 2-1.

Now into the back half of their round robin, Northern Ontario will play Ontario and British Columbia on Tuesday before closing up the round robin Thursday with two games against Manitoba (Dunstone) and Yukon. Team Bottcher has the bye in the next Pool A draw but will face Dunstone in Tuesday night action.

The next draw from the 2024 Montana's Brier is at 7:00 PM Central Time. In the featured matchup, Team Canada's Brad Gushue (2-2) will take on Alberta's Kevin Koe (1-3) in what could be a must win for both sides.

The winner of the 2024 Montana's Brier will represent Canada at the 2024 World Men's Curling Championship in Schaffhausen, Switzerland from March 30 to April 7.

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