John Epping, Kevin Koe to meet in Canada Cup men’s final

LEDUC, Alta. – Toronto’s John Epping scored a 12-4 victory over Edmonton’s Brendan Bottcher on Saturday in the Canada Cup semifinals, setting up a championship draw against Calgary’s Kevin Koe.

Epping, vice-skip Ryan Fry, second Mat Cam and lead Brent Laing earned the victory less than 24 hours after falling 7-3 to Bottcher in the final round-robin draw.

Later Saturday, Tracy Fleury of East St. Paul, Man. beat Calgary’s Chelsea Carey 9-4 in nine ends in the women’s semifinal. Fleury will play Ottawa’s Rachel Homan in the women’s championship draw.

Epping took advantage of a shaky start by Bottcher and built up an 8-1 lead after four ends.

Epping scored a pair of back-to-back four-enders when Bottcher’s last-rock draws fell short of the house in the third and fourth ends.

“We played a pretty solid game today,” said Epping. “Once we got up three, then seven, we were able to hit away. Overall, a good performance day for us.”

It will be Epping’s first shot at a Canada Cup title while Koe is looking to win his third. He won in 2008 as vice-skip for Blake MacDonald and in 2015 as skip.

Fleury scored three in the opening end against Carey and never trailed.

She went ahead 7-2 through seven ends and ended any chance of a comeback with a deuce in the ninth.

“It’s really exciting,” said Fleury. “We’ve been having a really good season, so we knew we would be a contender here. I’m really happy to have made it this far.”

Both the men’s and women’s final are Sunday.

—

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 30, 2019.