McCarville defeats Jones in Scotties shocker

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This article was published 28/02/2016 (3795 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GRANDE PRAIRIE, Alta. — One could question it forever, trying to pick apart what went wrong and how it happened, but the cold, hard fact will remain.

If there is to ever be a historic sixth Canadian championship for Jennifer Jones, well, it will just have to wait. This time, the one she was hunting for died in a sudden twist, on a slew of pass-the-whiskey misses that, to be honest, seem to be a running theme amongst Canadian women’s curling faves this season.

Now, Canada is guaranteed a new women’s curling champion. It could be Alberta champion and Manitoba daughter Chelsea Carey, whose rink vaulted to the top of this Tournament of Hearts. It could be Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville, surviving two playoff stunners to continue her magnificent comeback story.

“I’m in absolute shock,” McCarville said. “This is kind of the way our team’s been. We are getting down early, but after the fifth end, we’re just pulling up our socks. We seem to be battling back and making those shots we really need, and making them count when we need them.”

The second of those two, Saturday night’s 7-5 semifinal win over Jones, that’s the one that will keep people talking. Because with all credit to McCarville’s rink, the result spoke of an unravelling so stunning that reporters could only ask winning and losing skip alike the same opening question.

What just happened?

What happened, that a Jones rink that was almost perfect through the first five ends, lost it all in the final three? What happened that McCarville, freshly back from a hiatus from competition and skipping a first-year team into contention, managed to hang on to the rollercoaster long enough to reach the top?

The ice changed a little, Jones said after. McCarville agreed, noting that draw weight was heavier in the evening than it had been on the same sheet in the afternoon 3-vs-4 Page playoff game. That could explain how Jones’ final hammer draw came in light, handing McCarville a stolen point and the entire game.

“Obviously a little bit disappointing, kind of let that one slip away,” Jones said. “They played a great second half, and it just wasn’t good enough today.”

That heavy draw may have sealed the loss, but it wasn’t what built it. Jones, third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jill Officer and lead Dawn McEwen started out making some slick shots: they picked up a deuce in the first, and another in the third when McCarville’s first rock flashed out and Jones’ last tap hung on enough.

Those opening frames of the semifinal were the most polished Jones had looked all week. She was shooting a perfect 100 per cent through five, as was McEwen, and Officer and Lawes weren’t far behind. When McCarville held hammer, they neatly hemmed her in; when they did, they threw out options.

But McCarville had more tricks up her sleeve, and in the second half the momentum began to shift. The Thunder Bay skip threw out some pressure in the sixth, and it paid off: Jones threw a couple of errant shots in that end, including the light hammer that handed Northern Ontario a stolen single.

In the seventh, Jones wobbled a little more. McCarville jammed three rocks atop the button, where Jones’ rock sat shot; the Canada skip picked one out with a laser kill on her first rock. McCarville tried to tap one back to count, but instead knocked her own rock out of Jones’ way.

With her hammer, Jones was looking at a draw for a possible deuce that would have seized the game; it came in heavy, and Team Canada took only one away.

The ninth end, though, that was the killer. Jones led 5-4 holding hammer, but her team began to miss their marks. That led right up to Jones’ last shot. It could have been a simple hit-and-stick for a single, which would have put her in a decent position coming home without.

Instead, it ricocheted off its target and slid to the back of the 12-foot paint. McCarville stole a deuce and, for the first time in the match, led the game.

“I kinda let the girls down today,” Jones said. “But you know what, we had a great week, and hopefully we’ll be back. The whole idea is to try and be good in four years. I think we’re on the right track, so it’ just a matter of trying to win as many games as we can between now and then.”

While curling fans recover from the sheer tension of the game, they can take some solace in what this means to McCarville. A former four-time Ontario champion, she walked away from competitive play a few years ago, citing the demands of her career as a teacher and her two young children.

After watching the Northern Ontario final from the stands last year, the skip felt her passion rekindled. She assembled a new team with third Kendra Lilly, second Ashley Sippala and lead Sarah Potts, and they had a hot run through the first bonspiels that they entered.

Still, she may not quite have imagined she’d end up surpassing her previous highest Scotties finish, a bronze in 2010. But this has been the run of a lifetime, she said.

“This whole year, we’ve just had such a great year together,” McCarville said. “We’re all just such great friends on and off the ice. I just think that’s so important, and the fact that we’re winning is even better.”

Well, Jones will still have a chance to take home some hardware from the Scotties, when she faces Manitoba’s Kerri Einarson again in Sunday’s bronze-medal game.

Heck, maybe the two Manitoban teams can commiserate. Einarson looked set to clinch her Saturday afternoon 3-vs-4 Page playoff against McCarville, until her lead also crumbled in the last three ends. The win slipped through her fingers on her hammer shot in the 10th, which aimed wide and gave McCarville a stolen deuce.

With that, McCarville completed a 7-5 comeback victory, and Einarson was left to blink back the heartbreak of a last-minute loss. She had curled 93 per cent through the first five ends, and held a 5-2 lead after seven. But a few late-game misses piled up, allowing McCarville to claw back to a 5-5 tie.

“We controlled the whole game,” Einarson said, in the heavy moments after shaking hands on the loss. “I know we’ll be back, so we just got to go out there and play for the bronze, and go hard… it just wasn’t meant to be.”

 

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During a break in the 3-vs-4 Page game, Scotties organizers presented Saskatchewan third Ashley Howard with the 2016 Marj Mitchell Sportsmanship Award. The honour is handed out each year to the player judged to have exemplified fair play and dedication to the sport of curling.

That’s a nice recognition for Howard, in her rookie trip to the national championships. It’s also the third straight year that a Saskatchewan player has claimed the honour. Former Stefanie Lawton third Sherry Anderson earned the award in 2014 and again in Moose Jaw last year.

 

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca