Jones gang still on top

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This article was published 23/02/2012 (5168 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RED DEER, Alta. — They’ve been less than their best so far. They’ll tell you that themselves.

But in an uninspired field that has mostly underperformed to this point, Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones has been more than good enough to stand atop the standings heading into the final day of the round-robin at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

With her third and fourth straight victories on Wednesday — 8-6 in an extra end over B.C.’s Kelly Scott and 8-2 over the Territories’ Kerry Galusha Wednesday night — Jones improved to 7-2 to take over sole possession of first place heading into this morning. Manitoba will finish up its round robin today with games against Quebec’s Marie-France Larouche (5-3) and Ontario’s Tracy Horgan (4-5).

This particular renewal of the Canadian women’s curling championship was notable from the very beginning by the names that were missing from the field. With no Cheryl Bernard or Shannon Kleibrink or Sherry Middaugh or Rachel Homan or Stefanie Lawton, the consensus coming into this week was this event was Jones’s to lose.

And she’s shown no signs for the past two days of doing anything of the sort. Since giving away the game to Team Canada on a burned rock Monday night, the Jones foursome has been focused and unbeaten. And they’ve been doing it in vintage Jones style — taking careful measure of their opponents and then doing just a tiny bit more to get the job done.

While this Jones team has dominated the women’s curling scene in Canada for years, it is one of their long-standing quirks that they seldom dominate in individual games. And this week has been no different. Their last two wins have come in extra ends, a time in the game when Jones and her foursome — third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jill Officer and lead Dawn Askin — have always been at their best.

It’s seldom pretty to watch, but it’s always entertaining and Wednesday’s win over B.C. was typical. Jones gave away gift-wrapped points in two ends when her draws were heavy both times. But when the deal was finally going down in the extra end, Jones was perfect with her final rock– welding two Manitoba counters to the button to author the game-winning steal in what was a battle for first-place with Scott.

Scott, who’s played both with and against Jones for the better part of two decades, said afterward that the Jones team on display here right now is something less than vintage, but still very formidable.

“They’re not as good as I’ve seen them,” said Scott. “There’s a little wiggle room there right now. But they still don’t give you too many opportunities, they don’t make too many mistakes that open the door for you to kind of nail it to them. So it’s kind of shot for shot for shot for shot.

“It’s really, at the end of the game, who has an inch here or there. It’s not coming down to sloppy misses at all.”

Scott, Team Canada’s Amber Holland and Quebec’s Marie-France Larouche all carried 6-3 records into this morning and are tied for second place. Quebec beat Saskatchewan 10-6 in the late draw Wednesday.

Holland is one of only two skips to have beaten Jones this week — Alberta’s Heather Nedohin is the other. And she said that she has no doubt the path to the championship will once again go through Jones this weekend, as it did last year when Holland had to play Jones in the 1 vs. 2 game and then in the final en route to her first Canadian title.

“I said after we played them in the round robin that there was a good chance we’d play them again,” said Holland. “We know that team is a good team and they’re going to be there at the end. We have every expectation that if we make it to the playoffs, that’s the team we’ll be playing against.”

With her team alone in first, Jones was asked after the win over B.C. whether this would be the year her team might take the “easy” path to the championship, instead of fighting and clawing their way through tiebreakers as they have many times before.

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Jones seemed to bristle at the question. “This isn’t easy…,” said Jones. “You get out there…

“I thought we really fought to win that game and we fought to win against Saskatchewan (Tuesday afternoon) so hopefully we get some momentum from that.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

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