Ontario beats Manitoba in extra end

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This article was published 26/02/2017 (3345 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. CATHARINES, Ont. — Nobody will forget how this Scotties ended. Fans will remember for a long time. So will the players, who had to live it: the extra end, a championship hanging in balance, the tension snapping taut over the ice.

When the final rock landed, Ontario titan Rachel Homan had clawed 8-6 past Michelle Englot and Team Manitoba, just barely. It only made it to the 11th end because Homan threw a white-knuckle lifesaver with her last shot in 10.

That double took away Englot’s chance for a game-winning three. That’s how close Manitoba was to a maple leaf. Or, to understand just how tight it came to going the other way, consider how Homan herself ranked the game.

“That’s a tough sport, right there,” Homan said, trembling with relief moments after her game-winning shot. “That was a battle. That’s an unbelievable win by my team. That’s the hardest win we’ve ever fought for, I think.”

It was always going to be a tall order to beat Homan, her gaze laser-focused on winning her third Canadian title. That Team Manitoba had already done it twice in two nights, was testament to their sensational week at Meridian Centre.

All week long, skip Englot was poised and dangerous, especially on draws. Third Kate Cameron was superb, particularly in their key games. The front end of Raunora Wilson and Leslie Wilson powered the whole train.

So even though their Scotties quest ended one game sooner than they hoped, at least they can say they gave it their best. They took the world’s top curler right to the edge; and until the very end, the gold medal was still within reach.

“It was an incredible game,” Englot said. “We took her to last rock, and made her make a tough shot, so I’m really proud of my team… a couple of shots here and there, and it could have been a totally different game.”

In contrast to their previous two meetings, where Manitoba came out hot, this time the Granite four started soft. They hoped to swing first-end hammer for some damage; but while aiming for a blank, Englot’s last shot stuck for a single.

That wouldn’t prove to be fatal, but it did establish momentum. In the second end, Homan pounced: she aimed for a difficult shot with her hammer, and the big risk paid off. It ricocheted across the house to snag three and a 3-1 lead.

The middle of the game was cagey. Homan held Englot to a single in the third; in the fifth, Englot buried a silky draw to the back four-foot ring. It became a steal of one when Homan’s last draw came up short, tying the game up 3-3.

In the seventh, another Homan miss changed the face of the game. The Ontario skip lined up for a takeout that would have score four, and put the game away; but the shot crashed on a guard, giving Manitoba a steal and a 4-3 lead.

With that, the teams locked horns for one of the most heart-stopping finishes fans have recently seen: a flurry of brilliant shots and heart-pounding misses on both sides. As they did all week, Manitoba bent, but never broke.

So this is one they can be proud of, as they load up for whatever comes next. Although they won’t be going to the 2017 world championship in Beijing, this story isn’t over — if anything, in the run-up to 2018, it’s only just begun.

“It was an incredible run,” Englot said, of what she told her team. “We battled back. We gave up the three early, but we battled back. This team is just so amazing, that they never give up. We’re going to be a force next year.”

When Cameron, Wilson and Westcott recruited Englot last year, their goal was to reach the Olympic trials. Landing in the Scotties final has likely given them enough Canadian ranking points to clinch a berth for trials in December.

There’s also this: they beat Jennifer Jones to get to this Scotties; they beat Homan twice to get to the end. As a team, they’ve gone head-to-head against Canada’s best on the biggest stages, and proved beyond a doubt they can win.

“This has been an awesome building year for us,” Westcott said. “We know that we can be at trials. We know we can have a good showing there. It reinforces we’re not just a team that is middle-of-the-pack. We can be at the top.”

They weren’t the only Manitobans to hit the podium. Earlier in the day, Chelsea Carey — the 2014 Manitoba champion, who moved to Alberta and won the 2016 Scotties — claimed the bronze medal in an afternoon game.

Carey lost her chance to defend her title in the 3-vs-4 Page playoff, when she fell in a disastrous 8-1 flop to Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville. But she out-manoeuvred McCarville in their bronze medal rematch, winning 7-4.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca