Kelly Scott is all but assured of being in the playoff round at the BC Scotties women's curling championship at the Cloverdale Curling Club.
The Kelowna curler skipped her team to a 5-0 (won-loss) start after an 11-2 triumph over Simone Groundwater of Williams Lake in Draw 5 Wednesday morning.
Leading 4-0 after three ends, the three-time defending provincial champion closed the door by scoring four more in the fifth and three in the seventh.
Patti Knezevic of Prince George assumed sole possession of second place after she edged Marla Mallett 7-6 in an extra end. Mallett, a member of the host Cloverdale Curling Club, drew for one to tie the game 6-6 after the regulation 10 ends, but came up just short in the 11th.
Knezevic is 4-1, while Mallett dropped to 3-2 and into a three-way tie for third place with Kirsten Fox of the Royal City Curling Club in New Westminstyer and Grace MacInnes of Abbotsford.
MacInnes hung on to steal two in the 10th end to top Royal City's Marilou Richter 9-6, while Fox got past Roberta Kuhn of Vernon 7-6.
n Attendance at the BC Scotties has impressed Curl BC.
"The attendance is amazing – it shocks me. Normally at an event like this the days are quiet and the evening draws are busy," said Terry Vandale, chair of Curl BC's board of governors. "People work during the day, so usually there’s not that many here besides family and friends.
"But for a lot of the 11am draws this week, there have been 5-6 rows of people on the bleachers, which is great to see."
n Play continues with all teams in action during evening draws tonight (Wednesday) and tomorrow at 6:30 p.m., as well as tomorrow at 11 a.m. and Friday at 9:30 a.m.
Four teams will advance to the playoff round, which will begin Friday and conclude with the championship game Sunday at 2 p.m.