Jones team barely alive at Roar of the Rings

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This article was published 10/12/2009 (6111 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

EDMONTON – It isn’t quite dead yet, but Jennifer Jones’ quest for Olympic glory is now flat-lining and being wheeled into the intensive-care unit.

Jones and her St. Vital foursome of Cathy Overton-Clapham, Jill Officer and Dawn Askin lost both games at the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials on Wednesday and, to be blunt, looked awful falling 6-4 to Stefanie Lawton in the morning and 8-5 to Cheryl Bernard in the late draw.

Amazingly, even with a 2-4 record the two-time reigning Canadian champion – and No. 1 seed here at The Roar of the Rings – can still advance if they were to knock off Shannon Kleibrink today and have both Stefanie Lawton and Krista McCarville lose their games.

In fact, through six draws only one team is eliminated – Kelly Scott of Kelowna – while Bernard (6-0) and Kleibrink (4-2) have locked up first and second. The victory also means Bernard is headed directly into Saturday’s Olympic-berth final.

"It’s disappointing. I felt like I let the girls down," said Jones after the late evening draw. "But that’s curling, I guess. It’s been a tough week and things just aren’t going our way. We got outplayed today and Cheryl’s team played great."

Asked if it was a relief to at least still be alive, Jones – who is usually as upbeat as a morning rainbow – was succinct.

"Not really," she said. "We controlled our own fate today and we came in and didn’t play as well as we needed to. So we’re disappointed. We’re still alive, which is great, but we need a thousand things to go our way. It’s just… it’s just been a disappointing week.

"We’ll come out and play well tomorrow and hopefully finish it off good."

After falling to Lawton in the morning, Jones & Co. struggled mightily against Bernard in evening.

Jones was leading 1-0 when the wheels completely came off in the fourth end. After she was heavy on two draws, Bernard was left with a simple tap-back for four and a 4-1 advantage. Jones would answer with two in the fifth to pull within one at 5-4, but also missed on an opportunity to tie the game when her stone just tapped Bernard’s instead of chipping it out.

It got worse in the eighth when Jones needed simply a draw to anywhere in the eight-foot to tie the game at 5-5 but instead threw her rock right through the house.

"I knew (the ice) was fast on that side and I just threw too much

weight," said Jones. "It just happened. I don’t miss those very often and it was just a bad time to miss it. I don’t know what else to say, really."

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And so, Manitoba’s Olympic hopes are essentially left to Jeff Stoughton and his veteran Charleswood crew of Kevin Park, Rob Fowler and Steve Gould. Stoughton ran his record to 3-2 with an 8-4 win over Jason Gunnlaugson, now 0-5, in his only game Wednesday and completes the round robin with games against Wayne Middaugh and Pat Simmons, both 1-4.

"We’re hoping for a big logjam, but we know if we win both our games (Thursday)… well, I guess you never know, but we hope to be playing the next day (in the playoffs)," said Stoughton.

"You gotta get five (wins). I don’t think 4-3 is going to get you anything here just because there are too many guys with one loss although they will be coming back to the pack because they play each other now.

"We’ve been playing really well. Things are going well, we’ve just got to keep going (Thursday) morning against Wayne and go from there. That’s all we can try to do is put more ‘Ws’ on the board and see how it goes from there."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca