Lawes-Jones showdown not to be as Wild Card team eliminated from Scotties

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This article was published 24/02/2023 (1307 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

KAMLOOPS — Kaitlyn Lawes versus Jennifer Jones.

It was the game that most people — at least those in the middle province — wanted to see at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts

But the battle of former teammates wasn’t meant to be, as Winnipeg’s Lawes and her Wild Card No. 1 teammates lost a 7-6 heartbreaker in an extra end to Nova Scotia’s Christina Black in a Pool A tiebreaker game Thursday morning.

A victory would’ve pushed Lawes through to the final six for playoffs and scheduled an afternoon meeting with Jones in a Page qualifying game. But with the loss, Lawes, third Laura Walker, second Jocelyn Peterman, and lead Kristin MacCuish were eliminated from Canadian women’s curling nationals in Kamloops.

There were two Pool A tiebreakers, with British Columbia’s Clancy Grandy picking up an 8-3 victory over Quebec’s Laurie St-Georges in the other. All four teams were tied at 5-3 at the conclusion of the round robin.

Black stole the winning point in the 11th end. Lawes was in deep trouble on her final throw and had to essentially attempt a Hail Mary — a long in-off to dislodge Black’s shot rock off the button — but it missed the mark.

Black advanced to play Ontario’s Rachel Homan, and Grandy moved on to square off with Jones.

The winners of those afternoon games played either Team Canada’s Kerri Einarson (8-0) or Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville (7-1) in Page seeding games in the late draw.

“It was a great game. Nova Scotia played fantastic. I can’t really think of a shot that their back end missed so kudos to them for playing a hard-fought battle,” said Lawes.

“It’s always fun to take it to that extra end. You’d hope you’d make that fun in-off. It just had to curl up a little bit. It was close.”

This season marked the first time that Lawes — who spent the past 12 years playing third for Jones — skipped her own team. The group out of Fort Rouge Curling Club had to settle for a wild card berth to nationals after losing last month’s provincial semifinal to East St. Paul’s Meghan Walter.

Lawes arrived in Kamloops ranked fourth in the Canadian Team Ranking System.

“We’re close. I feel really confident in our team that we can learn from this,” said Lawes.

“It’s Year 1 of the quad, we’re a new team, and I’m in a new position. Big picture, we’re also all starting families so I’m really proud of the girls.”

Team Lawes had to shuffle their line-up throughout the year. Lawes took time off in December to deliver her first baby, a girl named Myla. Third Selena Njegovan took over the role of skip and Walker — an import from Edmonton — jumped in at third. When Lawes returned the following month for provincials, Njegovan had to step away as she’s expecting her first child at the end of March. Jill Officer came out of retirement to take over for Njegovan at provincial playdowns. With Njegovan also unable to play the Scotties, they had to apply for a pregnancy exemption to bring Walker back.

“I mean, it was fun getting to play different positions or sweep with different people,” said MacCuish.

“But yeah, I think we made the most of it. We worked hard with Laura to get here. We worked hard with the people that we did have in our line-up and I think that we should be proud of ourselves.”

Even though Lawes fell short this week, she’s encouraged and relishing the opportunity to throw last.

“I played the same position for a really long time so it’s just nice to mix things up and try something different. I’ve always been someone that likes to challenge myself, so I know it’s not going to be perfect right away,” said Lawes.

“And I’m glad we’re having these bumps in the road so we can learn from it and try to find ways to get better.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31