Saskatoon’s Rylan Kleiter and Brittany Tran have been eliminated from contention at the Canadian mixed doubles Olympic curling trials.
Kleiter-Tran won a must-win game early on Friday afternoon against Jennifer Jones and Brent Laing to qualify for the Page 3-4 playoff game against Rachel Homan and Brendan Bottcher on Friday evening.
Unfortunately, for the young duo of Kleiter-Tran, the magic that led to a first-place finish in their round-robin pool and a win in the playoffs ran out against a pair of Canadian champions, in Homan and Bottcher, as they fell 8-3.
Kleiter-Tran started the game with the hammer after a sensational draw to the button, but they couldn’t find a way to capitalize, settling for a point in the opening end. In the second end, Homan and Bottcher showed their big-game experience and capitalized on a mistake to score three.
In the third end Homan-Bottcher kept the pressure on and found a way to score three in the second end. Kleiter-Tran stayed aggressive in the third end, but Homan-Bottcher continued to connect on a world-class level and ended up stealing a pair. Another steal of two in the fourth end and forcing Kleiter-Tran to take one in the fifth clinched the victory for Homan-Bottcher.
Homan-Bottcher now play Lisa Weagle and John Epping in Saturday’s semi-final. The winner of that game plays Brett Gallant and Jocelyn Peterman, who downed Eagle-Epping 8-5 in the 1-2 Page playoff, in the final.
