Alberta gives notice at Scotties with 10-6 win over Team Canada

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This article was published 29/01/2018 (3113 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PENTICTON, B.C. — This Scotties field is officially on notice: Casey Scheidegger is here, and she means business.

The Alberta skip and her team sniped on Sunday night, en route to a 10-6 win over Michelle Englot’s Team Canada. That polished Alberta’s record to a perfect 3-0, and with their highest-ranked round robin competition behind them.

Yet when asked if it was a statement game, Scheidegger demurred: “You can’t take anybody lightly,” she said.

Besides, this was one of those games where the score doesn’t really tell the story. There were sensational shots and painful whiffs from both sides; Alberta just made big shots when they needed, and Canada’s misses hurt them more.

In fact, Englot almost managed to claw back from Alberta’s three-ender in the fourth. She picked up three of her own in the seventh to narrow the lead, then was looking at a potential ninth-end deuce to tie the game at eight apiece.

But the skip’s first shot in the eighth didn’t quite complete its mission, and left Scheidegger lying one. Her second throw missed its target entirely for a steal of two, and the loss.

“It was just a couple shots,” Englot said, of the difference makers. “We hung in there, and it was basically the one (fourth) end where we got in a little bit of trouble, was the turning point. We had to battle back from there.”

The two skips both finished with an 85 per cent shooting percentage, their teams close to the same. One of the stars of the game was Alberta third Cary-Anne McTaggart, who not only shot 92 per cent, but threw some key stunners.

That handed Englot (2-1) her first loss of the week, with four games left in the round robin.

It was overall a tense day for Team Canada, starting with a 6-5 extra-end squeaker over Quebec.

The match-up wasn’t expected to be a nailbiter; the Quebec foursome are only in their teens, and set a record for the youngest contenders ever. But while it wasn’t Team Canada’s best performance, credit is due to the youngsters.

“They played really well,” Englot said, after the win. “We had them in trouble, and (the skip) made some really great bail shots, and gave me some difficult ones… she just has really good feel for the game, and they throw really well.”

For instance, Quebec skip Emilia Gagne was trailing 5-4 in the 10th end, but coming home with hammer. She threw a pretty shot that nestled right to the button, tapping Englot’s shot rock for what was almost a game-winning deuce.

The opposing rocks sat so close, they needed a measure; Englot held second shot by just centimetres.

So that brought on a tie game and an extra end, where Englot threw an open hit for a single and the win. Afterwards, the 18-year-old Quebec skip sighed as she thought about how close she came to toppling third seed Team Canada.

Still, it was a result to be proud of, Gagne agreed: “It proved that we deserve to be here today.”

In the afternoon draw, reigning Manitoba champion Jennifer Jones rose to 2-0 with a six-end, 14-1 blowout of rookie Yukon skip Chelsea Duncan. No hard feelings: after the game, the two teams posed for a beaming group photo.

Nearby, wild card winner Kerri Einarson had to be more careful against Nova Scotia veteran Mary-Anne Arsenault; the teams were tied at 3-3 after seven ends. But a big three-ender in the eighth helped seal Einarson’s 7-5 win.

Jones and Einarson will be back in action with two games on Monday, while Englot has one. The action starts in the morning, when Jones takes on Nova Scotia (1-1), and Einarson faces Saskatchewan’s Sherry Anderson (1-1).

On a final note: not only is Newfoundland’s Stacie Curtis on a roll — 3-0, after Sunday — but she’s also a class act.

Just look at what she did in the eighth end of her game against Nunavut. Curtis was leading 10-3 and holding hammer; she knew the teams would shake after that end, and there was one Nunavut rock lying in the house.

Instead of scoring with the hit, Curtis let her shooter roll out for a blank.

The move was warmly received by the crowd, which offered up a cheer for the good sportsmanship.

The 2018 Scotties Tournament of Hearts continues through Feb. 4. The top four teams in each round robin pool advance to a championship round, which kicks off Thursday; that round will determine the final four playoff spots.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca