Epping advances through Summer Series Qualifying

Toronto's John Epping is first to finish round-robin at 3-1 at Saguenay Summer Series. Epping with Aaron Squires replacing Mat Camm along with Patrick Janssen and Jason Camm open the season sitting 19th overall on the World Curling Federation World Team Rankings coming into the season, looking to count their best two events before the end of September in the chase for one of the 16 spots available in the first Grand Slam of Curling event in October. In their opening game, Epping defeated Yannick Martel (Saguenay, QC) 8-2, then went on to lose 6-2 against Cameron Goodkey (Kitchener-Waterloo, ON). Epping responded with a 8-0 win over Stephane Michaud (Saguenay, QC). Epping won 7-2 against Julien Tremblay (Quebec, QC) in their final qualifying round match. With 7 teams still alive at 3-1 or better record, Epping hasn't guaranteed a berth into the playoffs quite yet, with their pre-game draw shot challenge total not bettering any of the other 6 teams in contention. Epping's total of 96 cms is complete with the best three of four throws counting, while all other teams still have one game and one shot to count. Epping's finish has clinched a berth into Saturday evening's tiebreaker round, however a lot of things would have to go wrong to leave Epping in that game.