Team Morrison keep play- off dream alive with USA win

SCOTLAND’S Team Morrison were ahead just once in their meeting with the USA at the LGT World Women’s Curling Champs, but it happened when it mattered most as they stole at the final end to claim a deserved 8- 7 victory that has revitalised their campaign.

Having suffered a string of narrow defeats, they made the worst possible start when they conceded a three at the opening end of their meeting with confident opponents who were looking well placed to reach the play- offs after winning four of their previous seven matches. However, from that point the Scottish line- up of Rebecca Morrison, Jen Dodds, who had replaced Gina Aitken in the line- up the previous day, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson, hardly put a foot wrong as they applied relentless pressure on their opponents to claw their way back to level- pegging, before producing a brilliantly constructed final end to give American skip Tabitha Petersen little chance with her final stone, but it was not quite sufficient to shift the shot stone and the 8- 7 win went Scotland’s way.

“We had a bit of a rough first end losing a steal of three, but from there onwards we brought our absolute A game to the table and just made life really difficult for USA,” said Scottish skip Rebecca Morrison.

“It’s been really difficult for us, having had so many close games and just coming out on the wrong side every time, so to finally come out on the right side gives us a little bit of a bounce in our step going into these last four games.

The meeting with the USA was their only game of day five. They now face Sweden and New Zealand on the penultimate day of the round- robin stages, before facing Switzerland and Turkiye on the final day, knowing that if they win all four matches they could still edge their way into the play- offs.