Einarson roars into final

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This article was published 02/02/2020 (2310 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RIVERS — Kerri Einarson knows all about what can happen in a Manitoba curling championship final. She’s played four of them in her time, and today she’ll make it five, and each one left its mark: one of them became her dream come true, but the other three broke her heart.

There’s no way to know which way this year’s journey will end, but some things are certain. One is that if Einarson plays the way she did across two games Saturday — not to mention her brilliant win over Jennifer Jones on Friday night — then there aren’t many teams in this entire sport that can beat her.

So all Einarson needs to focus on now is this: with a definitive 8-6 win over Tracy Fleury to close the championship round, she locked up the top overall finish at the 2020 Manitoba Scotties, giving her a bye to the final, where she’ll await the winner of this morning’s semifinal bout between Fleury and Jones.

Once again, she is one win away from claiming a buffalo jacket. It would be her second, but the first with her current team of vice Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard and lead Briane Meilleur, and it’s hard to put into words what it would mean to her.

“It would mean so much,” Einarson said, and her eyes were shining. “This team has worked so hard, and fought so hard to get where we are. We’ve had so many ups and downs, and we’ve felt those tough losses. To get a big win this week, would mean so much to us.”

What a year to get it done. Last week, the top three women’s curling teams in all of Canada marched into Riverdale Community Centre, and though there were ups and downs along the way — Einarson lost her first match in an upset by Team Abby Ackland, Jones fell flat against Fleury on Saturday — they are the last three standing.

Picking a favourite out of those was hard. They’re so close, they can all beat each other, none of them are de facto dominant against the other, the way Jones once was over a younger Einarson. It always seemed like it would come down to which of the “big three” got hot at the right time — and Einarson was red hot when she needed.

In the three most critical games of the week, she exploded. Against Jones on Friday night, she settled down after a few early stumbles to seize control of the game and a 7-6 extra end win. On Saturday afternoon, she dispatched Kristy Watling 7-1 in the first draw of the championship round, and then turned her attention to Fleury.

In that game, with the prized No. 1 spot on the line, Einarson was sensational. It was also the first time this week that Fleury looked particularly beatable, and Team Einarson had the bullets to capitalize on those mistakes.

“They played well, and we just weren’t quite ourselves tonight unfortunately,” Fleury said, moments after the loss. “We tried to fight back, and at least made it a game.”

Now, Jones and Fleury will face off at 9 a.m. in today’s semifinal, a rematch of their Saturday championship round game and less than 24 hours later. It was by far Jones’ weakest game of the Scotties, and Fleury won 7-4. But after beating Watling at night to clinch her semifinal berth, Jones was ready to put that behind her.

“We weren’t sharp this morning,” Jones said. “So we needed to play a bit better, and we started a little shaky in this game, but I thought we really played well in the second half, so we’ll have to carry that forward tomorrow… we know we’re going to have to play our very best if we’re going to beat them.”

Both the semifinal and 4 p.m. final will be televised live on Sportsnet.

There is one slightly anticlimactic twist to this whole tale, and that is the fact that whatever happens today, all three of Einarson, Fleury and Jones will head to the national Scotties in Moose Jaw, Sask., next week. One of them will be wearing the buffalo; the other two will face off in a winner-take-all match for the wild-card berth.

But for Watling, it’s the end of the maple leaf road. She’s at peace with that. Her Fort Rouge team’s performance in Rivers was one to be proud of, especially in such a stacked field. It wasn’t so long ago that Watling, 24, was a rising junior; now, she’s announced herself as one to watch in the broader women’s field.

“This was a nice week to break through,” Watling said. “This was our goal the entire season, was to make playoffs, because we missed them by a couple of games last year, and the year before. So to break through was great, and we’re just hoping to build on that each year and improve with each game.”

Time will tell what that will look like next year. Team Watling third Christine MacKay and second Taylor Maida plan to step back from competitive play next season to focus on their education. But Watling still hopes to play, whether that means skipping her own team or sliding into a spot on another good team.

For now, Watling will walk away proud that she held her own against Jones. She’d played Jones just once before, at the 2018 Scotties in Killarney. Back then she couldn’t shake the thrill who she was going up against out of her head, but this time, she said, the team was able to look past the name and focus on the shots.

“I remember playing her the first time, being so nervous,” she said, and laughed. “Playing her this time was completely different. I think we were just ready, and just relaxed, and it was good.”

 

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca