Jones the only Manitoba rink that remains unbeaten at Scotties

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This article was published 30/01/2018 (3145 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PENTICTON, B.C. – After three days, only two skips stand unbeaten at the 2018 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

The first, well, no surprise here. Manitoba champion Jennifer Jones rose to 4-0 with two Monday wins, inching closer to locking up a top spot heading into Thursday’s high-stakes championship around.

In the morning, Jones cruised 11-5 over Nova Scotia skip Mary-Anne Arsensault (2-2); at night, she went 12-4 over Northwest Territories’ Kerry Galusha (1-3) in eight ends.

Here are some fun facts. Through four games, Jones has yet to be stuck with a force, while holding hammer, and no opponents have blanked against her. She has also stolen on a whopping 44 per cent of her ends without hammer.

And if there were any questions about third Shannon Birchard, recruited to fill in for Olympic-bound Kaitlyn Lawes?

Well, Birchard is currently leading all thirds in the field, with a sterling 92 per cent shotmaking percentage. (Jones second Jill Officer and lead Dawn McEwen are also tops at their position; Jones’s 84 per cent ranks second.)

She now has a grip on top spot in her round robin pool, after fellow Manitoban and wild-card winner Kerri Einarson suffered her first loss on Monday night. Einarson slipped to 3-1, with a 7-5 flop to Northern Ontario’s Tracy Fleury.

That left just one other skip without a loss – and it’s time to take notice, of Newfoundland’s Stacie Curtis.

Curtis, 31, polished her perfect record to 4-0 on Monday, with a dramatic 9-4 upset of second seed Casey Scheidegger of Alberta. It was the first loss of the week for Scheidegger (3-1), a favourite to make playoffs.

“It’s kind of a little surreal right now,” Curtis said, moments after that victory.

After Monday’s games, Curtis, who entered as 10th seed, led all 16 skips in this field with an 86 per cent shooting percentage. (Her vice, Erin Porter, was tied with Einarson third Selena Kaatz for second place at their position.)

That’s a strong start for the 31-year-old skip, a former Canadian junior champion. A five-time Newfoundland champion, her previous high-water mark at Scotties came last year, when she went 5-6 in the round robin.

So it seemed as if Curtis was about to be knocking on the door. This year, her St. John’s team – which includes sister Julie Devereaux at second and lead Erica Trickett, filling in for injured Carrie Vautour – set their sights higher.

The team started working harder, Curtis said. They hit the road more, playing bonspiels in Atlantic Canada and Ontario. Now, they hope to accumulate enough world ranking points to earn invites to the marquee tournaments.

First things first: there’s a lot of curling left in Penticton, and Curtis is hoping to be there at the end.

“We’re really excited with where we are,” she said. “But we’ve still got a long way to go.”

On that note, Curtis’s hot start means Tuesday morning’s game against Michelle Englot’s Team Canada is now a big one. Englot rose to 3-1 with a 13-4 win over Amie Shackleton’s winless Yukon crew (0-3) on Monday afternoon.

The 2018 Scotties Tournament of Hearts runs through Sunday. The top four finishers from each round robin pool will advance to the championship round on Thursday, where they’ll duke it out to claim one of four weekend playoff spots.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca