Jackson team clinches Scottish championship

Perth skip claims first title with victory over seven-time champ

Perth curler Sophie Jackson led her team to victory at the Scottish Championships by claiming the scalp of seven-time former champion Eve Muirhead.

Jackson’s former world junior silver medallists had beaten Team Muirhead twice before in the round-robin stage of the women’s tournament at the Dewar’s Centre in Perth and an 11-7 victory saw them take the title for the first time.

Having reached the final last year at the championships, skip Jackson was delighted to have gone one better year.

Jackson, whose team-mates were Naomi Brown, Mili Smith and Sophie Sinclair, said: “It feels absolutely unreal. It’s not really sunk in.”

Despite claiming a psychological advantage from two victories ahead of the final, Jackson conceded she had mixed feelings about the third encounter against the more experienced skip, who was targeting her eighth title in the championships.

“It kind of works both ways. You do have in your mind that you’re going to struggle to beat Eve three times in a row with all the things she’s done and she’s a very experienced skip, but beating her twice gave us a bit more confidence.”

Muirhead was skipping a new line-up this year of Jen Dodds, Vicki Chalmers, Lauren Gray and Vicky Wright having returned to the game after hip surgery following representation at the 2018 Winter Olympics. this

Team Jackson’s next competitive outing will be at the World University Games in Russia next month, while Team Muirhead will now represent Scotland at the World Championships in Denmark, also taking place next month.

Saturday proved not to be the Muirheads’ day as Eve’s brothers, Glen and Thomas, also ended up as beaten finalists.

The Muirheads and colleagues Kyle and Cammy Smith won their first six round-robin matches, but back-to-back defeats to holder Bruce Mouat stalled their momentum.

Mouat led 6-5 before nicking a single at the last end to retain his national title and qualify for next month’s World Championships in Canada.

“We’ve had a good week, but we’re just disappointed to fall short at the end,” said Glen.

“They’re a good team and they’ve all been close games against them that went right down to the last end.”