TRURO – The Truro foursome led by Peter Burgess has its work cut out for it now.
Burgess, along with mate Craig Burgess, second Jared Bent and lead Todd Burgess, dropped a 7-2 decision to Lakeshore’s Paul Flemming in Thursday’s afternoon draw at the Molson Coors Tankard provincial men’s curling championship at Truro Curling Club.
The setback dropped Burgess to 1-3 and leaves him with little margin for error if he hopes to make Saturday’s playoff round. But the road doesn’t get any easier for the hometown team, which faces five-time champion Mark Dacey (2-1) of Mayflower in tonight’s 7 p.m. draw.
“We can’t let them get out to an early lead and we’ve got to keep pressure on them throughout the game,” Burgess said about tonight’s matchup. “We need to get up on them and force them into a junky game because if we have to play defensively then we’re going to have a hard time.”
Flemming, who handed CFB Halifax's Alan O'Leary his forst loss of the tournament in the morning, moved to 2-2 with the afternoon’s result and was able to fend Burgess off by placing his stones effectively early in the ends, forcing the Burgess side into difficult shots.
Flemming jumped out to a 2-0 lead after two ends before Burgess countered with one in the third. Flemming scored two in the fourth for a 4-1 lead. After Burgess clawed back to 4-2 in the fifth, Flemming finished the contest with one in the seventh and two more in the eighth.
“We were hoping to give them a better game today,” Burgess said.
Although he was disappointed with the result, a win tonight would meet Burgess’ goal of going 2-1 today. He already posted an 8-3 morning victory over Chad Stevens (1-3) of Mayflower.
“3-0 would have been nice but 2-1 we’re still in it,” Burgess said.
In other action in Thursday afternoon’s draw, O’Leary moved to 3-1 with an 8-2 victory over Stevens while defending champion Jamie Murphy (3-1) of Lakeshore cruised to a 10-2 win over Mayflower’s Shea Steele (1-3). Dacey nipped Mayflower clubmate Ian Juurlink (2-1) 6-4.
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