Jones takes another step towards setting Scotties record

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This article was published 25/02/2023 (1144 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

KAMLOOPS — Jennifer Jones has put herself in prime position to win the Scotties Tournament of Hearts for a record seventh time.

Jones and Team Manitoba took down Team Canada’s Kerri Einarson of Gimli 7-6 in Thursday night’s Page playoff seeding game at the Sandman Centre in Kamloops.

The difference was Jones scoring a massive four-ender in the second frame.

“We put our rocks in really good spots and they kind of just missed a few runbacks. She had a tough draw to give us one and we got lucky enough that it was heavy enough to get us the four,” said Jones.

“But it was still so early. It’s hard to defend that lead and I thought we played well from there on out and really never gave them a big chance to get back in it.”

With the win, Jones moves on to the Page 1-versus-2 game Saturday night (8 p.m. CT) against Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville. The winner goes to Sunday night’s championship game while the loser is given another chance and drops down to the semifinal.

The loss forces Einarson — the reigning, three-time champion — to take the long road to the final as she now must play the Page 3-versus-4 match in the afternoon (3 p.m. CT) against Nova Scotia’s Christina Black.

Winner goes to the semis, loser goes home.

McCarville blanked three straight ends before scoring a deuce in the 10th to defeat Black 6-3 in the other playoff seeding match.

“It’s always nice to play in the 1-2 game. You don’t have to, but it’s kind of a nice thing to play in,” said Jones, who has now won nine straight since losing her round robin opener to McCarville at the start of the week.

To Einarson’s credit, she fought back and made a game out of it, but she dug herself too big of a hole to overcome.

“Yeah, if we didn’t spot them four, I think it’s a different game,” said Einarson. “We never let up, though. We put some shots together and made them throw some more precise shots and yeah, we didn’t play badly.”

It was Einarson’s first loss at this year’s Canadian women’s curling nationals. A loss to Black would end Einarson’s aspirations of tying the legendary Colleen Jones (2001-04) as the only teams to win the Scotties four years in a row.

“I’ve never wanted to go through this thing undefeated because it’s extremely difficult to do that. Losing a game just makes us want to win even more,” said Einarson.

“So, our backs are up against the wall and we’re just going to give it our all.”

The final takes place Sunday at 8 p.m. CT.

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31