Dunstone Stays Alive KIOTI National

Winnipeg's Matt Dunstone (photo: Stan Fong, Hardline Curling) won 6-3 over Niklas Edin on Sportsnet's coverage of the Grand Slam National in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. Dunstone with B.J. Neufeld at third, Colton Lott and Ryan Harnden on the front end came into Thursday winless after their first two days of competition at the KIOTI National. In their opening game on Tuesday, Dunstone lost 8-6 to Korey Dropkin of the United States, then dropping a 7-2 decision to Brendan Bottcher (Calgary, AB) on Wednesday. Dunstone is coming off a win at an event they hosted in Sault Ste. Marie, where KIOTI was also the feature sponsor along with being Dunstone's core sponsor. Dunstone defeated Italy's Joel Retornaz for the $23,000 first prize pay-day. Edin opened scoring, drawing against three Dunstone counters in the second end. Dunstone got one in the third end making a hit against two Edin counters. Both team force game was strong in the first half, with Edin making a difficult draw to hit the button and score in the fourth end. In the fifth end, a small mistake from Niklas Edin rolled about a foot too far, leaving Dunstone the flat-big-weight double to score two and take a 3-2 lead. Dunstone put the pressure on Edin in the sixth end, leaving Edin the short runback to score a single point to tie the game at 3 each. In the seventh end, Edin's last rock ever so slightly rubbed a guard, leaving Dunstone a draw to the full four-foot for a third point. Dunstone put it in place to lead 6-3 into the final end where the reigning Manitoba champion ran the Swedes out of stone. Click Here to Re-watch the game on Sportsnet: Cable Subscription or Sportsnet+ Subscribtion Required The KIOTIO National has not been one of Dunstone's favourite events, having now posted a career record of 9 wins and 9 losses in 4 appearances at the KIOTI National. Dunstone, now 16-6 on the season finishes the round-robin against Owen Purcell of Halifax and will hope for some strong pre-game shootout results to sneak their way into the playoff round. The Grand Slams have eliminated tiebreaker games this season, and instead are using the pre-game draw to the button scores to break ties. With the increased impotance place upon these shootouts, teams now each player will throw two shots and count their best shot towards the team total. The format for round-robin play at the Grand Slams features a four game guarantee for the teams, who are then seeding in to 4 separate pools to balance out each block. Teams in Pool A play all their games against teams in Pool D, creating a balanced draw for every team in the field as everyone plays a 1 seed, 2 seed, 3 seed and 4 seed from a pool. Pool C plays against Pool D teams.