Jones survives Team BC challenge, Einarson perfect at 2-0 on the week

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This article was published 16/02/2020 (2150 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MOOSE JAW, Sask. — Say what you will about the roaring game, but you can’t deny this: it always finds a way to throw out something you wouldn’t expect. Sometimes, that goes at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts most of all.

For instance, few fans would have predicted that Team BC rookie Corryn Brown would be 4-0 over Jennifer Jones after two ends of their Sunday night battle. Even fewer would’ve guessed that Team Nunavut would be holding the same lead over Saskatchewan’s Robyn Silvernagle at the exact same time.

But if anyone thought those lopsided early scores would prove too deep a hole for either favoured team to climb out of, then they don’t know Robyn Silvernagle, and they don’t know Jennifer Jones.

Jones and her Team Wild Card lived up to their name Sunday night, surviving a wild Team BC challenge 11-10 in a game that went right to the last rock. It was an “entertaining” game, Jones said with a laugh, as well as one that got the adrenaline pumping, but somehow they got it done.

“We said, this is going have to be one of those games that we talk about at the end of the week that we found a way to win, and we found a way to win,” she said. “We never give up. We always fight to the bitter end and try to make some good ones and see what happens, and we did that in the game.”

It wasn’t a pretty game. Misses piled up early. The team shot 71 per cent as a whole, with Jones an anemic 64.

That meant big problems for Team Wild Card early. In the first end, Jones’ hammer draw slid heavy to give Brown a steal of three; Team BC stole another one in the second, then held Jones to a third-end force and struck for a deuce to build the commanding 6-1 lead before it was even time for the break.

But Jones capitalized on BC mistakes in the fifth for a three-spot to narrow the gap. And in the sixth end, without hammer, Wild Card crammed the with red rocks, lying four and leaving Brown a tricky shot to score; the BC skip’s attempted hit with hammer flopped, handing Jones a steal of four.

Still, it would come down to Jones’ last two rocks in the 10th end, and there she threw well, making a precise hit-and-roll to the button and a careful draw on top of a BC rock to score the game-winning deuce.

“It was fun,” Jones said, and laughed. “Kind of.”

Jones is now 2-1 on the week, after losing her first match to Rachel Homan on Saturday and cruising past Team Yukon 10-1 on Sunday morning. The Wild Card crew won’t be back in action until 6:30 p.m. Monday night, when they’ll face Prince Edward Island’s Suzanne Birt.

Also in the night draw, Silvernagle recovered from her early stumbles against Nunavut’s Lori Eddy, and went on to win 11-8 while a packed Mosaic Place crowd roared their approval. Saskatchewan is now 2-1 on the week.

But there was one big upset on Sunday night: Prince Edward Island’s Suzanne Birt edged Ontario’s Homan 9-8 in an extra end. That gave Homan her first loss of the week, and also left no unbeaten teams standing in their round robin pool, with four teams all sitting at 2-1.

Elsewhere around the Scotties on Sunday, Manitoba champion Kerri Einarson picked up a win over Nunavut in the morning draw. The game wasn’t a gimme: the teams were tied 3-3 going into the break, and Nunavut delivered the pressure. But Manitoba hung on to take a 6-4 win and stay perfect at 2-0 on the week.

Now, Einarson, third Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard and lead Brianne Meilleur have a critical back-to-back schedule on Monday. They hae to face Northern Ontario’s dangerous Team Krista McCarville in the 8:30 a.m. draw, followed by a game against reigning Canadian champ Chelsea Carey at 1:30 p.m.

The 2020 Scotties Tournament of Hearts runs through Feb. 23. On Thursday, the top four teams in each round robin pool will move to the championship round, where they’ll face the other pool’s four best. The four teams with the best overall record will advance to the weekend playoffs.

All draws are being broadcast live on TSN.

 

2020 Scotties Tournament of Hearts – Pool Standings After Sunday

Pool A

Alberta 3-0

Northern Ontario 2-0

Manitoba 2-0

Saskatchewan 2-1

Canada 1-1

Quebec 0-2

Nunavut 0-3

New Brunswick 0-3

 

 

Pool B

Prince Edward Island 2-1

Ontario 2-1

Wild Card 2-1

British Columbia 2-1

Nova Scotia 1-1

Newfoundland 1-1

Northwest Territories 0-2

Yukon 0-2

 

 

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca