Granite Curling Club’s Team Carruthers (skip Brad Jacobs, Reid Carruthers, Derek Samagalski, Connor Njegovan, coach Rob Meakin) have earned a name change. The team has become Team Manitoba with a pair of wins Sunday in Stonewall to win the 2024 Viterra Championship.

The top-seeded Granite foursome had qualified for the championship’s Page Playoff 1 vs 2 game but lost Saturday evening to #3 seed Braden Calvert and his Fort Rouge team.

That dropped them into the Sunday morning semi-final where they defeated the #4 seeded Jordon McDonald – Assiniboine Memorial team (Dallas Burgess, Elias Huminicki, Cam Olafson, William Lyburn).

The final game re-match with Calvert (Corey Chambers, Kyle Kurz, Brendan Bilawka) was tied 3-3 playing the eighth end when Team Carruthers stole a point to lead 4-3. A blanked ninth gave Calvert the hammer coming home but his team was unable to build the end. When skip Brad Jacobs sealed off the draw path to the four foot circle with his last stone, Calvert was faced with a low percentage runback triple kill. No success – Jacobs stole two more for the 6-3 win.

The Granite team will represent Manitoba at the Montana’s Brier in Regina in early March.

Reid Carruthers, who won the Brier and World Championship with Jeff Stoughton in 2011, has participated in 11 previous Briers as Team Manitoba (7), a wild card entry (3), and as an alternate in 2008 when he played his first Brier game.

Derek Samagalski has five Brier appearances as Manitoba champion and three as a wild card entry.

Connor Njegovan has four previous Brier appearances with two each as Team Manitoba and wild card entry.

While skip Brad Jacobs has represented Northern Ontario at the Brier 14 times, it is his first Manitoba championship.

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