Team Manitoba still unbeaten at Scotties

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This article was published 19/02/2017 (3163 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. CATHARINE’S, Ont. — With four draws done at the 2017 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, there are just two teams who reached three games and remained unbeaten: no surprise, Ontario dynamo Rachel Homan is one of them.

The other is Manitoba’s Michelle Englot — and so far, she’s the sharpest-shooting skip in the competition.

On Sunday, the buffalo gals — Englot, third Kate Cameron, second Leslie Wilson and lead Raunora Westcott — collected two wins at Meridian Place, beginning with a morning tilt against Saskatchewan.

They followed that up in the afternoon with a 9-4 win over Northwest Territories skip Kerry Galusha. 

“Our goal at this point was to be 3-0, and to keep learning about the ice, and we’re definitely doing that,” Englot said, after shaking on that one. “We’ll hopefully have a good rest tonight, and come out strong tomorrow too.”

Englot hasn’t been missing much; at 90 per cent, she leads all skips in cumulative shot-making percentage. (Through the first four draws, Homan, Galusha and defending champion Chelsea Carey were tied for second at 81 per cent.)

“This has been Michelle the last two or three months,” Cameron said. “She makes way more than she misses. We have such high expectations of her, and I think she’s so confident now that she’s making all of these shots.”

Team Manitoba will be back on the ice on Monday, where they’ll play two games: the first at 1:30 p.m. CST against Newfoundland (2-0), and the second at 6:30 p.m. CST against Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville (1-1).

Elsewhere in the afternoon draw, Homan (3-0) kept rolling, this time over Prince Edward Island (0-2), and Newfoundland’s Stacie Curtis (2-0) got her second win over British Columbia (0-3).

And Quebec’s Eve Belisle (1-2) broke the goose egg with a win over Alberta’s Shannon Kleibrink (1-1) — scoring a huge five-ender to put the game away.

On Sunday morning, Englot’s Team Manitoba surged 8-5 over Saskatchewan’s Penny Barker. For Regina-based Englot, who won seven Saskatchewan titles as skip, it had a little extra weight.

“I’m actually glad we played them early in the week, instead of later,” Englot said. “It’s done with now, and the story’s done, and we can just move on and concentrate on the rest of the week.”

There was also the matter of the ice. It was a balmy 12 C in St. Catharine’s on Saturday, and that combined with a jam-packed opening draw made the Meridian Centre feel awfully warm. As a result, frost crept over the ice.

But the arena had been cooled overnight, and was crisp on Sunday morning. Other than a few errant misses, Team Manitoba looked comfortable and consistent; they maintained pressure and pushed Barker into some tough shots.

“I thought we had real better control over our draw weight that entire game,” Englot said. “We had them in trouble in most ends. It was a little bit better out there in terms of ice conditions, and we got used to the ice a bit better.”

More coverage to come tonight.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca