The first four all-important playoff spots are up for grabs on Friday morning at the 2015 Safeway Championship in Brandon.
Carberry’s Kelly Marnoch improved to 2-and-0 after upsetting third-seed Reid Carruthers on Thursday morning and will play Brandonite Scott Ramsay and his Winnipeg team in an A-Side qualifier at 8:30 a.m. at Westman Communications Group Place.
"You can’t be any happier," said Marnoch. "Our goal is to qualify, so we got two cracks at it now. It’s all we could hope for."
The other A-Side qualifying games has top-ranked Mike McEwen meeting Jared Kolomaya; 11-time Manitoba champion Jeff Stoughton is going up against Daley Peters, while Canadian junior champion Braden Calvert is taking on Richard Muntain.
Meanwhile, former Canadian senior men’s champion Kelly Robertson of Neepawa is still in the running and is back in action at 12:15 p.m. against Kyle Foster in a B-Side semifinal.
"We’re going to have to play our best games because there’s some pretty good talent that’s coming along there, but we feel good and I don’t see why we can’t be in there Friday night," said Robertson.
Carruthers, fifth-seed Sean Grassie, Evan Martin, Trevor Loreth, Daniel Birchard, Matt Dunstone are also down to their last chance on the B-Side.
The 32-team field has been cut in half to 16 with fourth-seed William Lyburn, Pilot Mound’s Curtis McCannell, Deloraine’s Murray Warren, Perry Fisher of Wawanesa and Neepawa’s Jerry Chudley among those eliminated.
