Lopsided games mark afternoon draw at Scotties

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This article was published 05/02/2009 (6395 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEEPAWA – The gap between the contenders and also-rans at the 2009 Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts continued to widen this afternoon after three lopsided victories at Yellowhead Arena.

No. 2 seed Kristy Jenion of Fort Rouge clobbered La Salle’s Chris Scalena 9-4 and No. 3 Janet Harvey of Assiniboine Memorial crunched Terry Ursel of Plumas 11-6, while No. 7 seed Maureen Bonar of Brandon crushed Springfield’s Karen Rosser 10-4.

Jenion and Harvey both improved to 3-0 and Bonar is at 2-1, while Scalena and Rosser remain winless and Ursel fell to 1-2. In a game that got much closer in the end, No. 6 Karen Porritt improved to 3-0 with a 9-7 win over Brandon’s winless Tina Kozak.

Earlier today, Morden’s Chelsea Carey, the No. 4 seed, improved to 3-0 with a convincing 9-3 romp over Brandon’s Lisa Blixhavn to continue the assault on the lesser-ranked teams.

Carey stole three points in the second end and two more in the fifth for the six-end victory that kept her on pace with 2003 provincial champion and top seed Barb Spencer, also at 3-0 after an 8-1 win over Thompson’s winless Charlene Norquay.

Spencer, last year’s provincial runner-up to defending world champion Jennifer Jones in Gimli, stole every single end except the fifth — a blank — and the eighth, when Norquay scored in an 8-1 Spencer victory.

Carey, a former member of Spencer’s team, plays Norquay on the 4 p.m. draw this evening. It’s a game Carey says she and her team of Kari White, Kristen Foster and Lindsay Titheridge won’t take lightly.

“(Friday’s) a really tough day,” said Carey, who plays No. 5 Kim Link (2-1) and Spencer in the final full day of round-robin play before taking on eighth seed Holly Scott (3-0) Saturday morning.

“We know that and round-robins are geared that way. You come in knowing that, you try to get through the first part of it with as good a record as you can, you can’t look past anybody.”

Blixhavn, meanwhile, couldn’t get untracked against Carey and now is 1-2, with Spencer up next on the 4 p.m. draw.
“It’s not a fun roll,” said Blixhavn. “Just struggling a bit with draw weight again, we seem to have a lot of stuff set up and then one missed draw…and Chelsea’s team played great. They are a very good team.

“It’s a game of inches and we were on the wrong side of about 82 of them.”

In other games this morning, Scott won her third straight, stealing three in the seventh end and one more in the eighth for a 7-5 win over Linda Stewart (0-3) of Bowsman.

And Link continued to rebound from her opening-draw loss to Blixhavn, improving to 2-1 with a 6-3 result over Rossmere’s Angela Wickman (0-3).

Standings at the 2009 Scotties provincial Tournament of Hearts after Draw 3 (Top two teams in each group advance to playoffs)
Black Group
                            W    L
Barb Spencer            3     0
Chelsea Carey           3     0
Holly Scott                 3    0
Kim Link                    2    1
Lisa Blixhavn            1    2
Linda Stewart            0    3
Angela Wickman       0    3
Charlene Norquay     0    3

Red Group
                        W    L
Kristy Jenion       3      0        
Janet Harvey       3      0
Karen Porritt       3      0
Maureen Bonar    2     1
Terry Ursel           1     2
Karen Rosser        0     3
Tina Kozak            0     3
Chris Scalena        0     3

Draw 6 results Thursday (Top two teams in each pool advance to Page system playoffs):

Red Group
Harvey        403 020 020 x–11
Ursel            010 102 101 x–6

Porritt          204 020 100 x–9
Kozak           010 202 002 x–7

Bonar           203 101 03x–10
Rosser          010 020 10x–4

Scalena        000 010 30x–4
Jenion          121 102 02x–9