McDonald gets another shot

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This article was published 24/01/2016 (3739 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BEAUSEJOUR — By now, her fourth visit in the last six tries, the Manitoba curling championship final is a familiar place for Kristy McDonald.

The one this afternoon will be a little different, though. This time, the scoreboards that bookend the sheet will bear her name.

She earned that Saturday, on ice lit bright for TV cameras, in a match that began with a moment of silence for the lives lost Friday in a series of shootings in La Loche, Sask. Then, the top seed and her Granite Curling Club foursome surged 7-5 over Kerri Einarson in the 1 vs. 1 Page playoff game. With that, they were through to the final.

That part, McDonald knows. She played in three Manitoba Scotties championship games while throwing third for Chelsea Carey, most recently in 2014 when they beat Einarson for the title. (Last year, back on skip stones for the first time in years, McDonald fell out in the 2 vs. 2 Page playoff.)

So now, she’s one win away from a return trip to the nation’s biggest curling stage, and this time she’s calling the shots.

“It’s kind of neat, because I skipped for a long time,” McDonald said. “That’s been my career-long area, and it would be nice to finally win as a skip. Hopefully we’ll do it.”

If McDonald, third Kate Cameron, second Leslie Wilson and lead Raunora Westcott, play like they did in the playoff game, they would have a heck of a shot.

The game was sharp and cagey, though imperfect. McDonald settled for a single in the first, then Einarson took over. The East St. Paul skip blanked the second, though only after some promising plans were scuttled when third Selena Kaatz’ second shot jammed. She also blanked the third and the fourth.

Then in the fifth, the game turned on the speedy ice. Although McDonald crowded the house, a pretty double-takeout by Kaatz put her team on track for a big end. McDonald sought to limit the damage with her second rock, an attempted double-takeout; but it knocked just one of Einarson’s rocks out of the house. Seizing the moment, Einarson made a straightforward nose hit to score three and took a 3-1 lead into the break.

At first it looked like Einarson might hang on to that lead, as the teams cagily traded singles in the sixth and seventh ends. But in the eighth, the momentum changed: a couple of weak shots allowed a logjam to cluster around the back of the button. By Einarson’s last shot, McDonald was lying three.

That last Einarson shot went wrong. Instead of nestling in to sit shot, it bounced into one of McDonald’s and rolled a little off. McDonald stepped into the hack, pulled back, and released a firm nose hit that sent Einarson’s rock scooting away. She collected a four-point haul and a 6-4 lead.

Maybe it contributed that the ice was running fast, McDonald thought, or maybe it was just the adrenaline of the game.

“We got a little fortunate,” she said. “Things were going deep, but luckily we had a chance. We kind of finally got a break, because the fifth end was a tough one.”

Einarson battled to recover, but her ninth-end hammer rolled too far and stuck her with a single; she threatened to steal in the 10th, but McDonald made no mistake on her last shot of the game, a razor-sharp draw to the button.

Now, Einarson will get one more chance to keep her buffalo hunt alive, when she faces Shannon Birchard in today’s 9 a.m. semifinal.

“It was just one bad end,” Einarson said. “Just a tad bit heavy, and got a little bit unlucky. We’ll just have to come back tomorrow, and play better than that.”

And McDonald? She will wait and watch, knowing whoever she faces at 1:30 p.m. today will be tough. (Both playoff matches will be shown on Sportsnet West.) At least she gets the benefit of coming in fresh, with a little bit of practice and welcome bit of rest.

“It’s a huge bonus, as long as you don’t get too comfortable,” she said, with a laugh. “I’ll take it over playing in the semi any day. But we gotta be ready for whoever comes out of the semifinal… we’ve had really tough games with both of them. We just gotta be ready for it, and come out with a strong game.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca