REGINA – Trevor Bonot dropped a crucial Thursday match at the Montana’s Brier and is going to need help to make the playoffs.
The Thunder Bay skip fell 8-3 in the morning draw to Manitoba’s Matt Dunstone and sits at 5-2, with one game remaining, tied with Dunstone for third place.
To advance in Regina, Bonot will first have to defeat Yukon’s Thomas Scoffin (1-6), but it likely won’t be enough, unless Dunstone is defeated by Newfoundland and Labrador’s Andrew Symonds, who is coming off a 10-4 win over New Brunswick but only has two wins in seven games.
Bonot could still finish in a three-way tie for second with Dunstone and Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher or Manitoba's Reid Carruthers, who play each other on Thursday night.
But a three-way tie favours Bottcher, Carruthers and Dunstone under that scenario.
All three teams would be 6-2, each with 1-1 records against each other.
That sends it to the last stone draw tiebreaker. Bottcher is No. 1, with a 81.1 rank distance, and Dunstone is No. 2, at 116.9. Bonot sits in sixth, at 265.8, too high of a hill to climb at this stage of the week.
Dunstone led against Bonot the entire way.
With hammer in the first, he hit and stuck with his final stone to grab a 2-0 lead, then held Bonot to a single in the second.
Dunstone, who got into the field as a wild-card, made the most of hammer in the third -- when Bonot only removed one Manitoba stone on an attempted double for a chance at a blank, drawing for two and a 4-1 lead.
The Manitoba skip made an angle raise to the button to avoid a Bonot steal in the fifth and took a 5-2 lead into the break.
Down 6-3 in the eighth, Bonot was left with a near impossible shot for two, crashed and gave up two more and the two teams shook hands.
Draw 18 is scheduled for 8 p.m.
