Jones finishes the day at 3-0 at the women’s curling championship

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This article was published 15/02/2015 (4219 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MOOSE JAW, Sask. – On Sunday night, for once, the crowd roar didn’t rest on Jennifer Jones’ throws.

Instead, on a bustling second night of action at the 2015 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, the passions of the crowd at Mosaic Place flowed with Jones’ opponent, Saskatchewan’s own Stefanie Lawton.

Still, as Jones led her Team Manitoba to a crisp 7-4 win over the home-province heroes, the reigning Olympic champion loved the vibe all the same. Indeed, she said she hopes that Lawton makes it all the way to the playoffs to really give the bustling Moose Jaw crowd a jolt.

“It’s awesome,” said Jones, who rose to 3-0 on the week with the win. “At the Olympics it was just always loud, no matter what, and it was just fun to be a part of… even if they’re not cheering for us, it’s just the louder the better, it’s really what sport is all about.”

Well, the worst is over now for Lawton, who fell to 1-2 on the week after Sunday’s loss to Jones. Though she opened her Scotties with a win over Team B.C., she followed that up with a loss to two-time defending Canadian champion Rachel Homan on the tournament’s opening night.

Playing Jones the next night made for a heck of a start, but at least the two favourites are behind her now. “Definitely, it was a tough couple days here, but we’re getting stronger and stronger out there,” Lawton said. “Today was a better game than yesterday night.”

And so it was. Indeed, Sunday night’s prairie faceoff between Manitoba and Saskatchewan may have been the best game curled at this Scotties to that point.

Manitoba lead Dawn McEwen was settled. Second Jill Officer was sharp, curling 95 per cent through the game. Third Kaitlyn Lawes pulled out some big hits, and the skip? She threw a respectable 86 per cent, and kept pressure on the Saskatchewan rink.

Lawton, meanwhile, kept the game tight. In the fifth end, she made a slick takeout for a deuce, made possible in part after Jones’ first shot collided with a Saskatchewan guard and rolled out of play. The crowd cheered lustily for that one, as Manitoba carried a slim 3-2 lead into the break.

In the sixth end, Jones had a chance for a deuce, but only managed a single on a tricky final shot. But she held Lawton to a seventh-end single in response, and played a perfect little tap-back to score a deuce in eight and take a 6-3 lead. A strong defensive game in nine took Lawton’s hopes away.

Jones never needed to throw her final rock. “I thought we had a solid game from start to finish,” the skip said. “I felt like we got better from yesterday… we feel really good with draw weight, which is always nice, and I feel like I know where to put the broom, which is always a great feeling.”

(The reference, perhaps, was to the mucky second half of Jones’ opening-day win over Ontario’s Julie Hastings on Saturday, her first game of the week.)

Elsewhere in the evening draw at the Scotties on Sunday, the battle of Ontario turned into a nailbiter, as Team Ontario’s Julie Hastings gave Homan’s dominant foursome a run for their money. Hastings picked up a deuce in the eighth end to tie the game at 7-7, then stuck Homan to a lonely single in the ninth to give herself a chance. But Homan took away Hastings’ chance for a game-winning deuce, and the Ontario skip’s final shot rolled far enough out to give Homan a steal of two, and a 10-7 win.

Earlier in the day, Team Jones had easily handled a struggling Team B.C., rocking out an 11-2 win in the mandatory eight ends. After handing B.C.’s Patti Knezevic a single-point steal in the first end, Jones and her team rebounded to score in five consecutive ends. They picked up a deuce in the second end, then stole one in three, three in four, one in five and stole another three-spot in six to put the game far out of reach.

Near the end of the eighth end of that game, there was a classic curling moment. Knezevic had a shot rock sitting on the button, sandwiched by Jones’ stones above and below. But her first throw picked, and wound up knocking out her shot rock – and only her shot rock.

By that time, the game was far out of reach. But on the media bench high above the sheet, you could see Jones turn to Knezevic lead Rhonda Camozzi – who was in charge of placing the broom – and the two shared a smile, and a laugh.

“Actually, she said ‘sorry,’” Camozzi laughed, afterwards. “We just really didn’t have a lot of breaks in that game… at that point, you really have to (have humour). They’re Olympians, you’re not going to come back and score eight in two ends. That’s just not going to happen against that team, so you may as well make the most of it.”

And hey, while it was an 11-2 loss for her team – who are now 0-3 on the week — Camozzi wasn’t about to let the moment get her low. This is her first Scotties, after 34 years of curling – and playing against top competition is just one more reminder that she’s reached the dream. “They’re great, great players to play against,” she said. “They’re intense, but always talkative. They’re fun, it was a fun game.”