Confronted by the prospect of a second successive defeat that would have damaged their chances of reaching the play-offs, Team GB’s Callie Soutar and Ethan Brewster dug deep to turn things around against Czechia to claim a vital 8-3 victory.
The Czechs had gone into the Mixed Doubles encounter having won their first two matches in the Gangneung Arena, whereas Soutar and Brewster were looking to recover from a heavy defeat at the hands of hosts Korea. 
Things did not look to bode well for the British pair as steals at the first three ends saw their opponents build a 3-0 lead, but once they started scoring there was no stopping them as they registered singles at the next four ends to claim the lead heading into the decisive eighth end, where a steal of four wrapped up an impressive 8-3 win.
“It’s a great boost to know we can do it and we can beat the top teams, so that will be good for our next games and hopefully gives us the motivation to keep going and hopefully qualify,” said Soutar.
A key moment in the match had come at the sixth end when the Czechs opted to use their powerplay, only to drop the shot that levelled the match at that stage.
“We just played a really great end on their powerplay and managed to get a steal out of it, which was great and it went up from there.
“We kept stealing and then it was great to have our four in the last end.”
What had been crucial was the way that Soutar, at 15 the youngest Team GB curler at the Games and Brewster had kept their composure even when things looked to be going against them early on.
“In the first couple of ends we still felt we had control of the game, so we just had to trust our process and hope that eventually we could fight back and start scoring at more ends,” said Brewster.
“Once we started with the score at the fourth end we were able to keep going and going which felt really good, but it was important to get that score on the board.”
He reckoned that the momentum was very much with them by the closing stages of the match and they were confident at that point that they could claim the win, in spite of the Czechs having last stone advantage at the final end.
“To be honest going into that end we were 4-3 up and we had stolen already at three ends so their heads were probably a little bit down I like to think,” said Brewster.
“Going into that we made four shots absolutely inch perfect which really felt good and we made a tap back on their yellow which really left them with no shot at all, I would say, so when they were playing their last stone it was kind of all right… it felt like we had won the game.”
As they seek to emulate their compatriots in the Mixed Team event, who also lost their second match in the round-robin stages before going on to win every remaining match and the gold medal, they have two more pool matches left against Hungary and Canada.
Results
Day 1
GB – Nigeria 15-0
Day 2
GB – Korea 2-11
Day 3
GB – Czechia 8-3
Day 4
GB - Hungary
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Image: Team GB - Sam Mellish
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