Einarson defeats Jones 9-4, grabs top spot in round robin pool at Scotties

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This article was published 01/02/2018 (3123 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PENTICTON, B.C. — This win did not get Kerri Einarson a buffalo jacket, a grand slam title, or even just a pass out of a sudden-death game. There is a lot of curling yet to play at Scotties; in the end, this win might not mean anything.

But after 17 prior tries against Jennifer Jones — and 17 prior losses — Einarson has every right to be euphoric.

The Wild Card skip finally broke her Jones curse on Wednesday, exploding 9-4 over the Manitoba champ in eight ends. With that, Einarson (6-1) seized top spot in their round robin pool, heading into the tournament’s next phase.

“Oh my God, it’s such a relief,” Einarson said, after. “I got shivers as soon as we won. It’s amazing. It took me 17 tries, wow — or 18, now. And the only reason I ever knew that is because of Sportsnet, they always keep track.”

It was a victory against herself, almost. Because there was nothing else to explain why Einarson had found wins against other top skips in the game — Rachel Homan, Chelsea Carey — but never before beat her Manitoba rival.

“I can’t even pinpoint what it was,” Einarson said. “They always came up and played their best against us, every time. I’d be asking people, ‘do you have any advice for me?’… We were expecting that tonight, did really well, and kept up.”

The game was, by a wide margin, Jones’ softest performance of the week — far worse than her Wednesday morning loss to Northern Ontario’s Tracy Fleury. After four ends against Einarson, Jones was shooting a dismal 38 per cent.

It didn’t get much better. When it was over, Jones was shooting 50 per cent; Einarson, a sterling 91.

“I always say it’s nice to get all the bad shots out in one game, rather than wasting them over a few,” Jones said after the handshakes, and laughed. “So I thought we did that tonight.”

Those misses added up fast for Jones, and in the fourth, Einarson capitalized.

With her last shot, the East St. Paul skip wound up to throw heat. She unleashed the hammer towards a sea of rocks in the paint, most of them her own yellows. The shooter struck one red Jones guard, and drove it into the house.

The crack of granite on granite. Rocks squirted loose. When everything settled, four yellows counted.

That whopping four-ender vaulted Einarson into a 5-1 lead, one from which Jones never recovered. A fifth-end miss handed Einarson a steal of two; in the sixth, Jones’ attempted hit-and-roll double for three fell short, for a single.

“My team played so well, so did I, we just kept the pressure on them and got them early,” Einarson said.

Under the new format, the win doesn’t necessarily mean much. There are still four games left to play, and they are all against the other round robin group’s best teams. Still, being 6-1 and with Jones in the rearview is a good place to be.

So with the opening round robin done, how are the playoff races shaking out?

Here’s how the new format works. The top four teams from each round robin group move on to the championship round. There, they’ll battle the top four teams from the other group, looking to seize one of the final playoff spots.

From the first group, Einarson (6-1), Jones (5-2), Nova Scotia’s Mary-Anne Arsenault (5-2) and Northern Ontario’s Fleury (5-2) will move on. They will face the best of the other side, starting Thursday afternoon in Penticton.

And no, Jones isn’t too worried about shaking off her no-good, very bad Wednesday.

“We’ve been doing this for a long time,” she said. “Yeah, it’s pretty easy to get up tomorrow and come out and curl.”

In the other round robin group, second seed Alberta skip Casey Scheidegger seized first place with her 6-1 record. Hot on her heels is the third Manitoba-based team in the field, Michelle Englot’s Team Canada, who are also 5-2.

Englot closed her round robin on Wednesday afternoon, with a 7-5 loss to Ontario’s Hollie Duncan (4-3).

It was a crowded game: at one point in the eighth, seven rocks were crammed inside the four-foot.

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Englot had a chance there to score three and tie the game at six apiece, but missed her last shot; Duncan singled in 10 to win. That’s not quite the way that Englot wanted to finish the round robin, but her playoff quest will roll on.

“Five-and-two isn’t too bad going into the next round,” she said. “You need to get hot on the final weekend and win all your games from there on in anyway. So we’ll regroup and come out strong tomorrow.”

British Columbia’s Kesa Van Osch will also advance with her 4-3 record. Because she’d beaten Newfoundland’s Stacie Curtis (4-3) and Ontario’s Hollie Duncan (4-3) in the round robin, the latter teams go to a Thursday tiebreaker.

The championship round action runs Thursday and Friday, with draws at 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. CST.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Melissa Martin
Reporter-at-large

Melissa Martin reports and opines for the Winnipeg Free Press.

Every piece of reporting Melissa produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.