Patti Knezevic's goal on Friday morning at the B.C. Scotties was simple enough, win and stay alive at the provincial women's curling championship.
The Prince George skip did just that, making a double takeout with her first rock in the 10th to set up a steal in a 8-6 win over Sarah Wark of Victoria.
The good news didn't end there. Thanks to losses by Karla Thompson and Allison MacInnes on other sheets, the Knezevic rink nabbed sole possession of third place and avoided a messy five-way tie for fifth.
With a 5-4 record in the 10-team round robin, Knezevic earned a spot in the Page 3-4 game at 10 a.m. today, which essentially amounts to a quarter-final game. The semifinal is set for 7 tonight and the final will be played on 5 p.m. on Sunday.
"We set out a goal midweek and things were not coming easy for us," Knezevic said. "We just decided we're going to plow our way through this and if we're going to have to split our day every day and get the W in the end, then that's what we'll do and we figured that would secure us at least a playoff spot."
The team got another boost before the game even started when Knezevic's second and vice-skip Jen Rusnell was awarded the Kay Giles Sportsmanship Award.
Knezevic's quarter-final opponent was determined late Friday night after press time when the final of three tiebreaker draws was completed.
Wark and Knezevic went into the final draw with identical 4-4 records and both teams needed a win to ensure they would still be alive on the weekend.
With the game tied 3-3 after five ends, Wark missed on a blank attempt in the sixth end and was forced to one point.
Knezevic took advantage of the mistake and came back with a deuce in the seventh, set up in part by consecutive hit and rolls by Rusnell and third Kristen Fewster. Knezevic hit and stuck around with her last, but a measurement was needed for her second point with the official going around the rings three times before determining Knezevic's yellow rock was outcounting a Wark stone in the 12-foot.
"I felt like it was yellow, looking at it, it look like it was our stone," Knezevic said. "It was a huge point, but you can't waste a lot of time on the clock, looking, looking and looking to see who is shot because at the end of the day you still have to play something."
The teams traded deuces in the eighth and ninth ends before Knezevic got out of trouble in the 10th with the double takeout.
"The double was there, but it just about didn't come up," she said of her stone. "Any time you can get the rocks grouped together you have the opportunity to eliminate stones."
Wark had a chance to force an extra end, but was heavy with her last stone in the 10th giving Knezevic the steal and the win.
The tight, well-played game was reflected in the statistics with Knezevic shooting 79 per cent and Wark shooting 80 per cent.
"It's not that we had a ton of breaks," Knezevic said. "[The Wark rink] curled very well. We did have a couple of missed opportunities, but in the end it was a good game."
