Einarson needs tiebreaker success for shot at Olys

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This article was published 26/11/2021 (1600 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SASKATOON — The Manitoba trifecta will have to wait.

Kerri Einarson squandered an opportunity Friday to take a short, smooth path to the Canadian Olympic Trials playoffs.

Tracy Fleury (8-0) and Jennifer Jones (5-3) safely arrived at their destinations. But a costly slip, in the form of an 8-4 loss to Kelsey Rocque of Edmonton, dumped Einarson on winding road with potholes around every turn.

The Gimli squad (4-4) must go the tie-breaker route — not just one but two on Saturday — to reach the semifinal against Jones. Fleury is already booked into Sunday’s final.

“We never do anything the easy way, so we just have to keep grinding and keep fghting out there,” said Einarson. “I knew either way we were still in it but, obviously, you want to be straight in. But it is what it is. They played a really great game, and we were just that little bit off.

“We just weren’t sharp that game, just slipping deep on draws, and they really punished us for that. You can’t afford to do that.”

The Trials winner will head to Beijing to represent Canada at the 2022 Winter Olympics in February.

Champions at the last two national Scotties, Einarson, third Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard and lead Briane Meilleur must conjure up some of that championship magic.

Einarson, Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge, Alta., and Krista McCarville of Thunder Bay finished with identical 4-4 records. The third-place logjam sets up a hectic day at SaskTel Centre.

Einarson faces a must-win game with Scheidegger at 9 a.m., while McCarville plays the survivor at 2 p.m. The Northern Ontario team earned the bye owing to its superior results from pre-game draws to the button.

The arduous trek continues with a 7 p.m. semifinal meeting with the second-place Jones team from St. Vital, which captured gold at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.

Fleury’s foursome, simply brilliant all week, defeated Jones 7-6 in the last round-robin games for both sides to post an 8-0 record.

The skip from Sudbury, Ont., and her East St. Paul teammates, third Selena Njegovan, second Liz Fyfe and lead Kristin MacCuish, had locked up first place a day earlier.

Fleury is booked into Sunday’s 11 a.m. final and, other than a practise session, will spend most of Saturday away from the arena, looking for ways to block thoughts of the mammoth opportunity that awaits.

“(It’s) going to be a long day of waiting but we’re excited to have that bye to the final and we’ll try to keep ourselves busy and maybe find an Escape Room or do something fun,” said Njegovan.

Could a squad that takes the long way gain an upper hand in the final on the team that had time on its hands?

“You never know. People could get on a roll or there could be a lot of games for them. We’ll just focus on our game and what we’re doing and come out sharp on Sunday and see what happens,” she said;

Einarson was left with nearly identical long ‘in-offs’ in the eighth and ninth ends but couldn’t connect on the low-percentage shots to give up consecutive steals and fall behind 6-4.

“Oh my gawd, they’re extremely hard,” she said. “They’re very, very tough shots and I just missed them.”

Desperately needing a pair to tie, Einarson made a superb draw through traffic to sit one with her first stone. But Rocque sneaked by three guards all in a row to chip it out. Einarson then tried a razzle-dazzle triple but never really had a prayer.

Scheidegger got what she needed — an Einarson loss — and then tripped up Rachel Homan of Ottawa 8-6 to squeeze into the tie-breakers.

“It’s thrilling, really. I have to thank our friends from Alberta, Kelsey Rocque, for helping us out, that was very kind of them,” Scheidegger said. “We were glancing over every once in a while but our game was pretty tight, so we had to stay focused.”

Homan, who wore the Maple Leaf but failed to medal in Pyeongchang, finished 2-5 and in the Trials cellar.

jason.bell@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @WFPJasonBell