BRANDON, Man. — Jennifer Jones is bypassing elimination play and heading straight to the women's final of the 2016 Canada Cup.

Jones downed defending champion Rachel Homan of Ottawa 8-6 in a showdown for first place Friday night as the seven-team round robin concluded.

The Winnipeg skip, third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jill Officer, lead Dawn McEwen and coach Wendy Morgan finished first at 5-1. Homan was 4-2 and advanced to the event's semifinal on Saturday.

"We wanted to win that one, get ourselves into the final and get a day off, and I thought we came out and played well and took advantage of a couple of misses by them, and never really looked back," said Jones.

Homan will face the winner of a tiebreaker between Winnipeg's Kerri Einarson and Edmonton's Val Sweeting, who beat Jones 6-4 in Friday afternoon's draw to finish 3-3. Einarson earned her spot by downing Calgary's Chelsea Carey 8-6.

Tracy Fleury of Sudbury, Ont., had a chance to make it a three-way tiebreaker, but she finished 2-4 following a 6-5 loss to Edmonton's Kelsey Rocque (2-4).

On the men's side, Toronto's John Epping did his team and three others a big favour, although one of them didn't take advantage, by edging 2014 Olympic champion Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., 7-6 in the final draw.

After all the rocks had cleared, Epping, Jacobs and Saskatoon's Steve Laycock were all tied for third with 3-3 records, forcing a pair of tiebreaker games Saturday.

"It just seems like we don't do anything easy," said Epping. "This is just kind of normal for us. We're up for the challenge. It's great experience for the guys, this is a big event in front of lot of people with a lot on the line.

Winnipeg's Mike McEwen also had a shot at joining them but suffered a 7-6 extra-end loss to defending champion Kevin Koe of Calgary. McEwen and Koe finished at the bottom of the standings at 2-4.

Jacobs will play Laycock Saturday morning, with the winner facing Epping in the afternoon draw for the right to advance to Saturday night's semifinal against Winnipeg's Reid Carruthers.

The Brad Gushue team skipped by Mark Nichols, finished the round robin 4-2 along with Carruthers but was awarded the bye into Sunday's final by virtue of a 7-6 victory over Carruthers on Thursday.

The men's and women's champions earn $14,000 plus $2,000 per round-robin victory, and a berth in the 2017 Roar of the Rings Canadian Curling Trials, where Canada's Olympic four-player teams will be decided.

The winner also gets a trip to Las Vegas in January to be apart of Team North America at the 2017 Continental Cup.