Brent Pierce from Royal City in New Westminster is very hungry to get back to the Tim Hortons Brier, and Thursday night he took a big step toward doing that.

Pierce, who has been to three Briers, winning it all in 2000 with Greg McAulay while playing third, locked up the first playoff spot at the Canadian Direct Insurance B.C. Men's Curling Championship after beating Jay Tuson of the Victoria Curling Centre 12-6 in the A-Event final.

Pierce is now two wins away from advancing to the Brier, which goes March 3-11 in Saskatoon.

The turning point came early when Pierce stole three points on the second end to take a commanding 5-0 lead.

"The second end really changed the game,'' said Pierce. "Jay [Tuson] usually doesn't miss a draw to the eight foot. I'm very hungry to return to the Brier and this time as a skip.''

Pierce played third at all three of his previous Briers.

"We really got behind the 8-ball in the second end when I was heavy with my draw,'' said Tuson. "The Pierce team deserved to win as we struggled a bit. When you fall behind by that much in this calibre of competition, it is not too often that you can come back and win. I'm proud of how we did battle back and make a game of it.''

Tuson secured his berth in the final with a hard-fought 5-2 win over Victoria's Chris Baier, who is skipping a team from Royal City. The game was tied 1-1 after six ends when Tuson cracked a three to take control. Pierce advanced with an 8-6 victory over clubmate Ken McArdle.

After dropping his first game, Jody Epp from Victoria roared back with two wins in the B-Event. He opened the day with a 7-2 win over Wylie Eden of Penticton, before stopping Sean Geall of Delta (with Duncan's Jason Montgomery playing third) 9-3. Epp then dropped his next game 6-3 to former B.C. champion Jay Peachey from Royal City to fall to the C-Event.

"This has been a well-organized event,'' said Epp before playing Peachey. "All we have to worry about is eating and curling.

"We have been consistent in all three games. Our provincial rookies [front end of James York and Brad Kocurek] have held up well. They know the draw weight and they have been making a lot of shots. With the ice and the rocks being so good, it takes a lot of guess work out of it for the skip.''

Neil Dangerfield and his Victoria crew stayed alive in the last-chance C-Event with a 9-2 triumph over Eden.

"We could have easily won our first game and I take the blame for that loss,'' said Dangerfield's third Denis Sutton. "I made a bad sweeping call and I also didn't curl well at all. Our team has won a lot of games in a row before and that is what we have to do now.''

The first Island team eliminated was Steve Waatainen of Nanaimo after losing 8-6 to Tom Buchy from Kimberley.

"We were just terrible here,'' said Waatainen. "Nobody played great as we had a lot of trouble with the ice.''

The semifinal is 7:30 p.m on Saturday. The final is set for 5 p.m. Sunday. Both the semifinal and final will be shown on Shaw-TV.

rrauch@timescolonist.com