Scotland's Team Mouat were taken to an extra end in their final round-robin match at the Le Gruyere AOP European Curling Championships, but their 8-7 win over Finland was enough to ensure a second place finish in the standings and last stone advantage in their semi-final against Switzerland.
It was a match that Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan were expected to win quite comfortably against opponents who had won just one of their previous eight matches across the week, but with their skip Kalle Kiiskinen throwing caution to the wind and pulling off a series of extravagant shots, the Finns made them battle to the end.
Among those was a brilliant angled raise into the house to keep the match alive at the last end of scheduled play, which came after Kiiskinen had made the unorthodox decision to effectively hand the Scots a two and go 7-6 behind at the ninth end.
That took the match into overtime and while his team ensured that the route to the centre of the house was kept clear, Mouat still had to hold his nerve to deliver the decisive blow with a last stone takeout.
"They'd obviously struggled at the start of the week, but they'd come onto some form and took a lot of teams to a close finish, so we weren't expecting it to go completely our way and it was a tough game," the Scottish skip admitted. 
"They played some unbelievable shots, so fair play to them.
"Each team's different in terms of what their preference is at the final end.
"Obviously theirs is to be one down with the hammer to try and take two, but I was quite happy to see that they were drawing and giving us a two at the ninth end.
"It was interesting, but I wasn't completely surprised and it was nice to have a few shots in the 10th end, making them play a really tough angled run to score.
"From that point I knew we were pretty solid. We're a pretty good team when we've got hammer in the last end."
They now face the Swiss, who had to rely on their Draw Shot Challenge record to confirm their place in the semis after losing to Norway, who were the team to miss out after both of them, along with six-time world champions and seven-time European Champions Sweden, all finished with a record of six wins and three losses.
Having beaten the same opponents earlier in the week, Mouat feels the reigning World and defending European champions can head into the match with confidence.
"The boys and I have had a lot of good things happening this week and we're going to lean on those for experience and knowledge in the semi-final against this Swiss team." he said.
"It's a really good position to be in, exactly what you want at the start of the week is to start the semi-final with hammer.
"We've done a lot of good things and we're going to continue them into the play-offs."
He also expressed sympathy for Scottish compatriots Team Morrison, whose line-up includes Jen Dodds, with whom Mouat won the World Mixed Doubles Championship at the same venue, Curl Aberdeen, after they were squeezed out of the play-offs after losing their final match to Norway.
"We were gutted for Team Morrison, but I'm sure they'll bounce back," said Mouat.
"They've had an incredible season so far and they'll work hard towards the World Championships."
The top eight men’s and women’s teams at these Championships, which take place from November 18-25 will qualify for the World Championships later this season.
The BKT Tires World Women’s Curling Championship 2024 will be hosted in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada in March 2024 and the LGT World Men’s Curling Championship 2024 will take place in Schaffhausen, Switzerland in April 2024.
Games will be broadcast on Recast available on The Curling Channel
The following games will be available on the BBC Sport website, app and BBC iPlayer
Play-offs and medal matches - TBC.
Scotland Schedule:
Saturday 18 November
Women’s Round Robin Session 1
Scotland v Turkiye 8-4
Men’s Round Robin Session 1
Scotland v Norway 5-3
Women’s Round Robin Session 2
Scotland v Denmark 9-11
Sunday 19 November
Men’s Round Robin Session 2
Scotland v Sweden 5-8
Women’s Round Robin Session 3
Scotland v Italy 6-7
Men’s Round Robin Session 3
Scotland v Czechia 6-5
Monday 20 November
Women’s Round Robin Session 4
Scotland v Czechia 8-1
Men’s Round Robin Session 4
Scotland v Switzerland 9-6
Women’s Round Robin Session 5
Scotland v Sweden 9-7
Men’s Round Robin Session 5
Scotland v Germany 8-2
Tuesday 21 November
Women’s Round Robin Session 6
Scotland v Germany 5-3
Men’s Round Robin Session 6
Scotland v Italy 6-7
Women’s Round Robin Session 7
Scotland v Switzerland 2-5
Wednesday 22 November
Men’s Round Robin Session 7
Scotland v Netherlands 9-4
Women’s Round Robin Session 8
Scotland v Estonia 6-4
Men’s Round Robin Session 8
Scotland v Turkiye 10-3 (QUALIFIED)
Thursday 23 November
Women’s Round Robin Session 9
Scotland v Norway 7-9
Men’s Round Robin Session 9 – 14.00
Scotland v Finland 8-7
Women’s Semi Finals – 19.00
Friday 24 November
Men’s Semi Finals – 09.00
Women’s Bronze Medal Game – 14.00
Men’s Bronze Medal Game – 19.00
Saturday 25 November
Women’s Gold Medal Game – 09.00
Men’s Gold Medal Game – 14.00
Scotland Women
Rebecca Morrison
Jennifer Dodds
Gina Aitken
Sophie Jackson
Sophie Sinclair
Coach: Ross Paterson
Scotland Men
Bruce Mouat
Grant Hardie
Bobby Lammie
Hammy McMillan
Kyle Waddell
Coach: Michael Goodfellow
#curling #ECC2023
Image: WCF
