“We played some of our best curling today.”

That is what Matt Dunstone was saying after a huge Friday at the Tim Hortons Brier to finish at 8-3 and advance to the 1 vs 2 game on Saturday afternoon against Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher.

After losing to Brad Jacobs and Kevin Koe on Thursday, Dunstone and Team Saskatchewan were in tough on Friday as they finished the championship pool against Jason Gunnlaugson of Manitoba and Newfoundland’s Brad Gushue.

In both games, the skip had to come through with big shots in the 10th end to get wins.

In the afternoon draw, a delicate angle-raise was good for two to take a 9-8 win over Gunnlaugson with the evening game coming down to the last rock as well with Dunstone executing a double to count two and win 6-5.

“I didn’t picture this at the beginning of the day when I work up and it’s hard to believe it all felt into place.” Dunstone said. “It seems to be all falling into place for us right now and the theme for us had been to take advantage of the breaks we’ve gotten. The whole theme has been 40 years and we’ve put ourselves in a great position now. Maybe it’s just meant to be for us.”

The 1 vs 2 game will go Saturday afternoon at 1 o’clock with the winner advancing to Sunday’s final.  The 3 vs 4 game will see Gushue against one of either Brad Jacobs, Kevin Koe, Mike McEwen or John Epping.  All five rinks finished with records of 7-4, but Gushue gets third meaning the other four will have to play in two tiebreakers to determine who finishes fourth.