Through two to get to two

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/01/2011 (5608 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ALTONA — It will be a little old(er) and a little new in the Page playoff 2 vs. 2 game this morning at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

Twenty-three year-old Fort Rouge skip Kerri Einarson rattled off a pair of tiebreaker wins Saturday — 7-6 over Janet Harvey and then 6-3 over Joelle Brown — to advance to this morning’s contest against 2001 Manitoba womens champion Karen Rosser.

The two tiebreaker victories were all the more impressive coming as they did after a disappointing 8-7 extra end loss to Cathy Overton-Clapham to end the round robin earlier in the day. Had Einarson won that game, she would have advanced straight to this morning’s 1 vs. 1 game.

Instead, she had an exhausting three-game day Saturday and will have to do the exact same thing all over again today if she is to become a Manitoba curling champion for the first time.

“The adrenaline is pumping but, yeah, I’m pretty tired,” Einarson said Saturday night.

Einarson said she spent the previous night fretting. “I’m pretty much going on two or three hours sleep,” Einarson said.

“I was just thinking, thinking too much. I always do that. I think about different shots that I missed or whatever that I knew I could make with my eyes closed.

“I was just thinking about that and tossing and turning all night.”

Einarson will face in Rosser the only team in the field that is a bigger surprise than her own.

Rosser finished the round robin at 6-1 and advanced to the 2 vs. 2 game with an 8-5 win in her final round robin game on Saturday against Michelle Montford.

Perhaps the most compelling storyline of the day, however, was the epic collapse of Harvey.

The two-time Manitoba champion was up 6-4 coming home in her final round-robin game against Brown and needed only to run Brown out of rocks to finish the round robin at 6-1 and claim first place in their pool.

But Harvey played the final end disastrously. Lead Carey Kirby turned the end’s first rock — a draw to the four-foot — into a guard instead.

And then instead of removing the stone with Kirby’s next rock, Harvey left it out front and drew around it.

A comedy of compounding errors ensued, ending when Harvey left Brown a tailor-made double takeout for a game-winning three-ender.

That punted Harvey from the 1 vs. 1 game all the way down to the first of two rounds of tiebreaker games. And that was as far as Harvey got as she set up yet another game-winning double-takeout, this time gifting the double to Einarson who used the last rock of their tiebreaker game to spill two Harvey stones and score the tenth end single she needed for a 7-6 victory.

Einarson and Brown had a bruising battle in the ensuing second tiebreaker game that ultimately turned in the ninth end when Brown, drawing against three, was too heavy and yielded a steal of two to Einarson.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

 

today

8:30 a.m.

1 vs. 1

Chelsea Carey vs Cathy Overton-Clapham

(Winner advances to final, loser advances to semifinal)

 

2 vs. 2 game

Karen Rosser vs Kerri Einarson

(Winner advances to semi-final, loser is eliminated)

 

12:15 p.m.

Semifinal

 

4 p.m.

Final