Championship round starts to come into focus
MOOSE JAW, SASK. Wily veteran Mary-anne Arsenault and her young Nova Scotia teammates were already in a win-or-go-home situation on Wednesday at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, so being back in that situation on Thursday won’t faze them.
Nova Scotia forced a tiebreaker to get into the championship round on Wednesday afternoon with a 10-4 win over Corryn Brown of British Columbia at Mosaic Place.
Nova Scotia (4-3) will play B.C. (4-3) once again Thursday morning, with the winning team joining 6-1 Ontario (Rachel Homan), 6-1 Wild Card (Jennifer Jones) and 5-2 P.E.I. (Suzanne Birt) in the championship round from Pool B.
“It’s really everything,” the 51-year-old Arsenault said of living to play another day. “That’s what we come here for. To keep fighting and continue along is what every player plays for because we just love the game.”
The championship round will begin Thursday afternoon, with four teams from Pool A also joining the fray. Manitoba’s Kerri Einarson finished on top of Pool A with a 6-1 record, capping it with an 8-6 win over Alberta Wednesday night, eliminating Laura Walker’s 3-4 team.
Northern Ontario (Krista Mccarville) finished second at 5-2, winning a key matchup with Saskatchewan’s Robyn Silvernagle 4-3 in an extra end on the final draw.
That dropped Silvernagle to 4-3 and into a tiebreaker scenario with Team Canada (Chelsea Carey) and New Brunswick (Andrea Crawford). New Brunswick beat Canada 7-5 on the last draw to force its way into the tiebreaker.
But Canada had the best last stone draw record between the three teams and gets an automatic entry into the championship round, while New Brunswick will play Saskatchewan Thursday morning in a tiebreaker.
Teams will carry their records over into the championship round and play each of the teams from the other pool before the playoff order is determined Friday night.
ROOKIES OF THE YEAR
Brown’s team entered Wednesday’s game having lost only twice in its Canadian women’s curling championship debut.
Those games were against Jones and Homan — combined winners of nine Canadian titles — and both losses came on last rock.
You’d have to say B.C., is one of the surprise teams of this event, especially if they win that tiebreaker on Thursday.
“Against Homan and Jones, we were one shot away from winning either of them,” Brown said. “Just need to be a bit more precise in those situation.
“It’s a pretty big stage and it’s the biggest one we’ve all been on so it’s always gonna have a learning curve involved. But I think we’ve done really well. It’s just more so about capitalizing on those last shots of some games that we should have won.”
TOP SEEDS SHINING
There have been plenty of upsets and a few surprises this week, but in the end, the top three seeds finished the round-robin at the top of their pools.
Einarson was seeded first, Homan second and Jones third and they finished with a combined record of 18-3. Homan beat Jones in the opening game of the tournament so they can’t face each other again until the playoffs, but Einarson (6-1) will have to face both of them in the championship round.
“It’s tough out there, every game has been right to the end,” Homan said. “We’ve got some big games ahead of us and some big moving days on Thursday and Friday.”
Jones has had to scramble to put together her 6-1 record. Her team needed extra ends to win the wild card game over Tracy Fleury last Friday and has been pushed to extras twice more since.
Jones, though curling only 74% for the week, has made big shots when her team needs them most.
“We’re kinda where we want to be at the end of this part of the competition,” Jones said. “All-inall I’ve been really happy with our play. I feel like we’re playing well, making big shots when we have to. We’ve been good on draws, good with our speed. We have to try to be a little big sharper.”
NO QUIT IN NUNAVUT
Skip Lori Eddy and Team Nunavut have been the talk of the Scotties all week even though they won’t be going to the championship round.
Nunavut pushed top-seed Manitoba in a game on Sunday, upset Northern Ontario on Tuesday and then had a chance to pull off an even more massive win on Wednesday against Chelsea Carey and Team Canada. Nunavut had the hammer in the 10th end, tied 5-5 and Eddy made an impressive double takeout that most people thought was for the win. Unfortunately for Nunavut and very fortunately for Team Canada, a measure still gave Carey the winning point.
Still, Nunavut has repeatedly showed it can compete this week and could easily have picked up as many as three wins. They finished with a record two wins after beating Quebec (Noemie Verreault) 7-6 Wednesday night.
“I think this week has exceeded all our expectations. ”