ONE OUT OF THREE AIN’T BAD: HOMAN BEATS ENGLOT IN FINAL
Thanks to spectacular clutch shotmaking, Rachel Homan and her Ontario foursome are Canadian champions again.
In 11 ends of drama-drenched curling on Sunday night that featured world-class shotmaking throughout, Homan’s unlikely circus shots were the difference as the Ontario champions knocked off Michelle Englot and her feisty Manitoba rink in the gold medal game at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts 8-6.
Homan is the world’s topranked female curler and she played like it Sunday night from start to finish, executing a difficult double takeout early on to take command and then, after other breathtaking peels and draws, making a game-saving double takeout in the 10th to force an 11th end. Homan’s foursome then scored two for the win.
Manitoba hadn’t scored fewer than seven points in its previous 12 games this week.
It’s Homan’s third Canadian championship in the past five years. She won in 2013 and 2014. All this before her 28th birthday on April 5.
Homan’s foursome will go for their first gold at the world championships, March 18 to 26 in Beijing. Homan won silver in 2013 and bronze in 2014.
Englot and her team of Kate Cameron (third), Leslie Wilson (second) and Raunora Westcott (lead) had dumped Homan 9-5 on Thursday night to finish tied with the previously undefeated Ontario atop the round robin standings at 10-1.
A night later, Englot’s highpressure game again worked against Ontario, and Manitoba scored a 9-8 victory in the one-two Page playoff match to advance directly to Sunday night’s championship game.
Homan and her team of Emma Miskew (third), Joanne Courtney (second) and Lisa Weagle (lead) had to defeat Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville in Saturday night’s semifinal, and did so in impressive fashion, 7-5.
As the one-two Page playoff winner, Englot possessed the hammer to open the title game.
With her last rock, facing a Homan stone sitting alone in the house in the four-foot ring, Englot made the night’s first mistake. She messed up a simple hit-and-roll in trying to blank the end and keep the hammer. But her shooter rolled only to the edge of the 12-foot and Manitoba scored one.
With the hammer to open the previous two games against Homan, Englot had scored three on Thursday night and two on Friday to seize immediate advantage in both games. This time she blinked at the get-go.
Momentum seemed to swing back to Manitoba early in the second end, when Courtney’s shooter ticked a guard and failed to spill either of two Manitoba stones in the house. Wilson froze to Courtney’s wayward shooter in the house and Manitoba sat three.
But Homan, on last rock, worked one of her most magical moments at a Scotties. She faced a shot Manitoba stone just behind the four-foot left side, plus two Ontario stones backstopping it and also a couple of Manitoba stones in the house off to the right.
Homan barely hesitated to attempt a difficult cross-house double off the front Manitoba stone on the right, sitting on the edge of the eight-foot. The 27-year-old rocketed out of the hack and unleashed a heater. It caromed hard off the front Manitoba stone at the precise angle required, then flew straight across the back of the four-foot and into Manitoba’s shot rock, which spilled — leaving Homan’s smokin’ shooter and the two friendly rocks behind it to score three for Ontario.
Most of the 4,143 in attendance at the Meridian Centre went wild at the home-province skip’s heroics. Up 3-1, it was the first time Homan led Englot at these Scotties.
Englot had to take only a single in third, but between blanked ends stole singles in the fifth and seventh to take a 5-4 lead entering the eighth.
In the 11th, Englot, with her last throw, drew to full back four-foot for shot, behind a long Manitoba guard and partly covered by an Ontario stone in front, just inside the eight-foot. With last rock at these Scotties, Homan pulled off one more magnificent shot — a raise takeout to spill Manitoba’s shot stone and score two.
Homan is the world’s topranked female curler and she played like it Sunday night from start to finish … All this before her 28th birthday on April 5.