Robertson chasing fourth Toba title

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This article was published 25/01/2019 (2637 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GIMLI, Man. — In her more than three decades on the sheet, Darcy Robertson has done it all. She’s set provincial records, toppled some favoured contenders, Won a few buffalo jackets, and still somehow flown under the radar.

Now, she will get her chance to vie for her fourth provincial title: on Friday night, Robertson and her Assinibone Memorial team became the first rink to clinch a playoff spot at the 2019 Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

The skip, along with third Karen Klein, second Vanessa Foster and lead Theresa Cannon, sealed the deal with a nailbiter 8-7 win over Tracy Fleury. That lifted them to 6-0 on the week, the last unbeaten team in Gimli.

“It feels great,” Robertson said, moments after the win. “That was a tough game again, and it feels awesome. This is where we want to be. What we worked hard for all year was to get to this point.”

Getting there wasn’t easy. The clincher came down to Fleury’s last shot in an extra end, a daring hit-and-roll with hammer. It needed a measure to show that the rock slid a hair too far; Robertson seized the winning steal of one.

“It was so close when I looked at it, I wasn’t even sure,” Robertson said. “When (the umpire) signalled us, I was actually quite surprised. I honestly thought it might have been them. It was that close.”

So a matter of millimetres was enough to lock Robertson into the playoffs. Who will she meet there? She’ll have to wait and see: with one game left in the round robin, four teams remain in the hunt for three remaining playoff spots.

Second seed Fleury, who sits at 5-1, is guaranteed at least a tiebreaker. So is hometown hero Kerri Einarson, who recovered from an upset afternoon loss to Barb Spencer with a 9-6 win over Allison Flaxey at night.

The loss knocked Flaxey down to 3-3 and out of the playoffs — a disappointing finish for the fourth seed.

Meanwhile, two up-and-coming skips are making waves. Former Manitoba junior champ Beth Peterson has been electric in her sophomore Scotties, leading a team of third Jenna Loder, second Katherine Doerksen and lead Melissa Gordon.

On Friday night, Peterson exploded 12-2 past Spencer in just seven ends to polish her record to 5-1.

“Today was our best day,” Peterson said. “We put a really good game together. We knew if we won we’d pretty much be in playoffs, with my draw to the button tonight, and the team’s during the week. The team was on fire tonight.”

Peterson will face Einarson this afternoon. One of the two will fall to 5-2 on the week — and Team Abby Ackland, who played without their skip for most of the week, will be gunning to finish with that record, too.

So tiebreakers seem likely. Meanwhile, predicting how the playoff placement could shake out is tricky. A new format unveiled this year for the Manitoba junior and women’s championships means that even this late in the week, it’s not quite clear where qualifying teams might land.

Teams still compete the round robin in two pools of eight. But now, instead of the top two from each pool advancing to the Page playoffs, the top four teams in the entire field will qualify. In some years, that could mean multiple teams from different pools will finish with identical records.

So the new format may see more tiebreakers, and there’s another quirk: if multiple teams are tied from different groups, their position could be determined based on the results of their cumulative pre-game draws to the button.

It’s a tweak designed to ensure the best four teams make the playoffs, regardless of which pool they’re in. But it does make the standings a little harder to scrutinize and the possible outcomes harder to foresee.

For instance, under the old format, Fleury would have lost her chance at the 1-vs-2 Page playoff with the loss to Robertson. But she still has a chance to make it into the top Page game, based on her draw to the button results.

Despite second chances like that, the response from curlers has been, for the most part, ambivalent. Fleury was “on the fence” about the new format, she said. Robertson was also non-committal when asked how she saw the change.

“It’s hard to say,” Robertson said. “You want the best four teams to come through. I’m not sure if this is the best way… but we’ll see how it pans out. I guess if we win tomorrow, then we’re right in there, and that’s how we want to finish it.”

If any of the playoff placements do have to be determined by the cumulative results of the pre-game draw to the button, Fleury has an edge: her team was leading the field as of Friday night, with Peterson’s rink close behind.

—

It took a little bit longer than she wanted, but Ackland finally made her Scotties debut on Friday night.

The story was one of the week’s small delights. The skip, a two-time Manitoba junior champion, found out just before Christmas that she’d been accepted to train as a paramedic. Only downside: that meant she would have to miss most of her rookie Scotties round robin.

While she was gone, her team of third Hailey Ryan, second Emilie Rafnson and lead Sara Oliver soldiered on admirably without her. Fifth Brandi Forrest called the shots for the first four games; when she had to work on Friday afternoon, junior standout Meghan Walter took over the reins.

They did so well that, by the time Ackland rejoined them Friday night, she arrived to some presents. Not only does the foursome have a shot at a tiebreaker with a 4-2 record, but they also collected a rare bit of Scotties bragging rights: they landed a seven-ender.

The scoring outburst came in the third end of their Friday afternoon game against veteran Joelle Brown; the teams shook on Ackland’s 10-2 win after six ends. Afterwards, Ryan couldn’t remember the last time she’d scored seven — or even if she ever had: “maybe in like, beer league,” she said with a laugh, “nothing competitive.”

“We made eight perfect shots that end, so it’s a good confidence boost going forward,” she added.

That boost must have done wonders. At night, with Ackland finally back in the hack, the young foursome curled out a strong 7-3 win over Dauphin’s Lisa Hale to keep themselves in contention for a tiebreaker game.

The 2019 Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts continues at the Gimli Recreation Centre, with playoffs set to begin this afternoon. The semifinal and final will be televised live on Sportsnet starting at 9 a.m. Sunday.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca