Eve and Bruce bag a pair of Worlds slots
Eve Muirhead and Bruce Mouat will represent Scotland at next month’s World Curling Championships, following convincing victories in yesterday’s Scottish Finals at the Dewars Centre in Perth.
Muirhead and her team-mates Vicky Wright, Jennifer Dodds and Lauren Gray were on home ice and began the final as favourites after beating Aberdeen’s Maggie Wilson on Thursday and Friday.
Wilson’s rink led early on, but five stones in three ends put Team Muirhead 6-2 up before a steal at the eighth end gave them an unassailable 8-3 advantage.
Wilson conceded defeat towards the end of the ninth, and having secured her eighth national title, Muirhead can now look forward to her first World Championship since 2017 in British Columbia next month.
“It was disappointing to lose last year’s Scottish final to Sophie Jackson. But that refocused us,” said Dodds.
“We worked even harder to win this year and we never took anything for granted. Although we’d already beaten Maggie twice, we knew we couldn’t be complacent today.
“We played the simple shots well in the second half, and we forced them to play the difficult ones.”
Eve’s brothers Glen and Thomas had the chance to complete a unique family double in last night’s men’s final, but holder Mouat was chasing a hat-trick of titles and was also seeking revenge for Friday’s play-off defeat to the Muirheads.
The 2018 European champion led from the start and the writing was on the wall when the Murrayfield skip and his colleagues Hammy McMillan, Bobby Lammie and Grant Hardie went 5-2 ahead.
Muirhead and company threw in the towel when trailing 6-3,andMouatnow has the honour of going for world gold at Glasgow’s Emirates Arenaattheendof March.
“It’s so special,” he smiled. “You always dream of playing a Worlds in your own country, and I’m sure it’ll be a great atmosphere in Glasgow.
“Winning three Scottish titles is fantastic, but it’s hard to process itrightnow.”