Three games down for each team, four to go in curling tournament

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This article was published 21/01/2016 (3784 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BEAUSEJOUR, Man. – With three games in the books for each team and four left to play, the leaders at the 2016 Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts are beginning to pull away.

Well, in one of the groups anyway. There have been no surprises after three draws in the round robin’s Asham Group, where top seed Kristy McDonald, fourth-ranked Michelle Montford, talented young skip Shannon Birchard and perennial contender Joelle Brown are all undefeated at 3-0.

Still hunting for a win in that group are Neepawa’s Terry Ursel, who lost 8-5 to Brown on Thursday morning, East St. Paul skip Kim Link, who lost 8-4 to Montford in eight ends, and juniors Christine MacKay and Mackenzie Zacharias, who will play each other on Thursday afternoon.

But after wrapping up Thursday’s noon-hour draw, the round robin’s Extreme Force group is still tight. By Thursday afternoon, Cathy Overton-Clapham and Darcy Robertson stood the last unbeaten skips at 3-0.

Overton-Clapham kept her streak going with a 6-3 win over Dauphin’s Lisa Menard in the midday draw, while Robertson struck for a five-ender in the ninth to work her way out of a tight match against Cheryl Reed, and secure a 10-6 win. (Robertson, oddly, has made a habit of that in this Scotties; her two games on Wednesday also ended with big scores of four- and five-point ends.)

Elsewhere in that draw, second seed Kerri Einarson continued to stride forward after a surprising upset on day one, delivering a 7-1 thumping to Thompson’s Jennifer Rolles to better her record to 2-1. And third-seed Barb Spencer, who also stumbled to an unexpected loss in her first match, narrowly picked up a 9-8 extra-end win over Janet Harvey to keep pace with Einarson.

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There are two more draws on Thursday, as the round robin passes the halfway mark. The Asham Group will play their second games of the day at 4 p.m., while the Extreme Force group will wrap day two with a 7:45 p.m. draw.

The round robin continues through Saturday morning at Beausejour’s Sun Gro Centre, with playoffs set to start on Saturday evening. The championship final is slated for 1:30 p.m. on Sunday. The playoffs will be televised on designated Sportsnet channels.

Melissa Martin
Reporter-at-large

Melissa Martin reports and opines for the Winnipeg Free Press.

Every piece of reporting Melissa produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.