Jones, Sweeting in final, but Saskatchewan wins too

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This article was published 22/02/2015 (4107 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MOOSE JAW, Sask. — Even as Stefanie Lawton watched her Scotties scrape to a halt on a dawdling final rock, somehow Saskatchewan hadn’t really lost.

Sure, the host province’s skip fell to Alberta’s Val Sweeting in the Saturday semifinal at the Tournament of Hearts, a 7-6 nail-biter that went to the wire. Sweeting faces Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones in tonight’s final.

Inside Mosaic Place, though, the whole day was a celebration of Saskatchewan, and from the seats down to the ice the province came to play.

Organizers had told fans to wear their green, so 4,155 people turned out swathed (mostly) in Roughriders gear. They hushed, they roared and they cheered, and when a marching band in Riders jerseys blomped out a brassy “Sweet Caroline,” fans crooned right along.

Basically? This is a place that loves its curling, and on Saturday, they showed it.

When Saskatchewan third Sherry Anderson, a beloved figure around the game, made a silky ninth-end draw, a clutch of rowdies bellowed some love. “Sherry rules!” one man yelled, and the veteran curler turned and grinned.

On the sheet, though, it quickly became Sweeting’s game to win. After rough outings on Friday, the skip rebounded with a brilliant semifinal show.

She shot 91 per cent and Alberta second Dana Ferguson was also excellent. Lawton, up until then the sharpest-shooting skip in the field, put up just 73 per cent.

Still, despite a huge three-ender by Alberta in the fourth, the game was in play all the way to an electrifying last two ends.

The teams traded deuces in the sixth and seventh, and Sweeting blanked the eighth while holding a 6-5 lead. In the ninth Lawton gave up a single, and looked to find a way to push her in the 10th.

‘It’s been an incredible journey. Playing in front of our home province, there’s nothing better than that. It’s so much fun, and we really, really enjoyed ourselves this week’

— Saskatchewan skip Stefanie Lawton

She almost found it. When Alberta third Lori Olson-Johns threw a flash with her second rock, the door was suddenly open for Lawton to potentially lay three. “That was really unfortunate,” Sweeting said. “I just maybe gave her a little bit too much ice, I didn’t think she deserved to flash that at all… She immediately said ‘sorry,’ and I said ‘you know what, it’s not over.’ “

It definitely wasn’t. A brave sweeping effort from Saskatchewan’s front end helped bury Lawton’s first shot in the eight-foot, to lay two. So the game hinged on Sweeting’s final shot, a tricky freeze that — if it hadn’t gone quite far enough — would have left Lawton an open hit for a game-winning three.

The Alberta skip made no mistake. Her shot curled up and tapped right on top a Lawton rock, and though it wasn’t shot it cut off the three, with nowhere to go.

Lawton tried to play the deuce, but her final shot slowed on a sticky path they hadn’t played much, to seal Alberta’s win.

It was something of a triumph for Lawton to be there in the first place. She’d made it to the 3 vs. 4 Page playoff game in all three of her previous Scotties visits, but never advanced further. So when she edged Team Canada’s Rachel Homan in Saturday morning’s thriller, that was a moment.

“It’s been an incredible journey,” Lawton said, after the semifinal loss. “Playing in front of our home province, there’s nothing better than that. It’s so much fun, and we really, really enjoyed ourselves this week.”

Now, Sweeting and her team, which also includes lead Rachelle Brown, will gear up to face Jones and Manitoba. Again.

The Albertans lost two games to Manitoba on Friday, as Jones’ golden foursome continued their nearly unstoppable march to the final. When the two heavyweights face off again at 7 p.m. tonight, with everything on the line, the Albertans plan to go in with guns a blazin’.

“Third time’s the charm, maybe,” Sweeting said. “It’ll be a close game. We’ll just try not to spot them four, and it should be better… We just have to limit the mistakes, and if we happen to get an opportunity we’ll have to take it, but we can’t wait for it.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca