Great Scott… What a shot!

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/10/2009 (6114 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Talk about grace under pressure.With Jennifer Jones’s last rock sitting on the button, Kelly Scott settled into the hack and calmly delivered a quiet takeout, inching into the four-foot to win the Manitoba Lotteries Women’s Classic Bonspiel Monday at the Fort Rouge Curling Club.

Nothing came easy for Scott on Monday. Some may have written off Scott and her team of third Jeanna Schraeder, second Sasha Carter and lead Jacquie Armstrong after the fifth end of her semifinal against Edmonton’s Heather Nedohin. Scott, down 5-1, cracked a deuce, then stole three in a row, including the extra end, to win 6-5.

St. Vital’s Jones made it into the final with a 4-2 win over Krista McCarville of Thunder Bay.

At the Meyers Norris Penny Men’s Prairie Classic in Portage, it was an all-Manitoba final as Kerry Burtnyk of Winnipeg defeated Jason Gunnlaugson of Beausejour 4-2 in six ends. Burtnyk got past Dave Elias of Winnipeg 7-5 in one semifinal, while Gunnlaugson defeated Jeff Stoughton of Winnipeg 7-4 in the other.

A three in the first end by Burtnyk set the tone for the match.

"That was huge for us. We were able to run rocks really well. They were placing them well, but my guys (third, Don Walchuk, second, Richard Daneault and lead, Garth Smith) were able to defend really well. He had a chance for a two-ender (in the fourth), but his rock picked on him," said Burtnyk, who ended up stealing one to go up 4-0.

"That would have made it 3-2 but it ended up poorly for him."

With an eye trained toward making the Vancouver Olympics, Scott, a former Winnipegger, welcomed the pressure that Jones and her crew of third Cathy Overton-Clapham, second Jill Officer and lead Dawn Askin placed on her, especially the last-rock situation.

"It’s good practice for me," she said, just before accepting the winner’s cheque of $15,000. "We hope to have a lot of games like that coming up in the next month or so. It’s good to be in that position and finish off by making that shot. What we are looking for now is gaining confidence going into the whole Olympic playdown stuff."

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Jones gave up two in the first end and struggled the rest of the night to catch up. "It was kind of a bad two, we just couldn’t get our deuce back," she said. "But it was a good game and we are pretty happy with how we played this weekend. We almost got our deuce back in the sixth, but it didn’t work out."

Scott, of Kelowna, B.C., didn’t think that her semifinal win had any bearing on the win over Jones. "I don’t know. You’re fortunate when you win games like that, so it was good to see that should we be down, just keep battling and we can maybe scrape out a win.

"It was good to prove to ourselves that we could do that."

Burtnyk, who pocketed $18,000 in first-prize money, also has his eyes on an Olympic berth. "This is a step along the way. There’s only one event before the pretrials. We’re in Brooks, Alta., next weekend, and the pretrials is two weekends after that in Prince George. This (win) was a good boost to our confidence."

allan.besson@freepress.mb.ca