OSTERSUND – Norway's men and Canada's women each won wild tiebreaker matches to qualify for the fourth and final playoff spots at the 2008 World Junior Curling Championships.

Norway's Kristian Rolvsfjord took two three-enders and a deuce in subduing Switzerland's Manuel Ruch 9-6 in the men's tiebreaker. It marked Ruch's fifth consecutive loss after opening the tournament with five straight wins.

"There's a little more we can work on," said Rolvsfjord. "Our defense is not so good as a team right now."

Norway will face the United States in the Page 3 versus 4 playoff game Saturday. Both Rolvsfjord and U.S. skip Chris Plys are appearing in their third consecutive World Junior Championship.

Meanwhile, Canada's Kaitlyn Lawes won a high-scoring but sloppy encounter with Denmark, skipped by 2007 World Women's runner-up Madeleine Dupont. Lawes was down 5-1 after Denmark stole three points in the third end, and Lawes also missed free shots for extra points in the fourth and ninth ends.

The veteran Dupont, however, struggled herself. The skip gassed her last shot of the game in the 10th end and the Canadians inexplicably stole three for the inflated 10-7 victory.

"I don't know where to begin," Lawes told reporters.

"We don't want to do things the difficult way, but..."

Lawes explained her team did not enjoy a good pre-game practice session.

"We switched (our rocks) all around during practice because some of them were curling more than we thought they would. So we spent most of the first three ends worried about our rocks. The we just decided to throw them and not worry so much."

Lawes felt sympathy for Dupont.

"She's such an accomplished curler, I have so much respect for her," said Lawes, an international curling rookie.

"We've lost leads throughout this week like that. We knew if we could hang in there and pick away, we'd have a chance."

Canada meets 2006 World Junior Champion Liudmila Privivkova of Russia in the Page 3 versus 4 playoff game on Saturday. The winner is through to the semifinal.

The weekend's layoff matches will be webcasted by Curlingkanalen.se, with the semis and finals also webstreamed on Eurosport's Swedish channel (semis March 8 at 1400 CST and the finals March 9 at 930 and 1400 CST).

Real-time results are also available at: www.curlingkanalen.se with daily results mirrored on the World Curling Federation website at: results.worldcurling.org