Watling gaining confidence in Carberry

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This article was published 18/12/2021 (1387 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CARBERRY — For the second straight Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Kristy Watling is competing in the championship round.

However, unlike her first appearance at the 2020 event in Rivers, she has a lot more confidence going into the stretch run at the Carberry Plains Community Centre.

“I think back then I was a little bit nervous as we were going up against the top three teams in the world (Jennifer Jones, Kerri Einarson and Tracy Fleury) at the time,” Watling said. “I’m feeling a lot more comfortable out there now compared to where I was almost two years ago.”

Watling’s rink from the Assiniboine Memorial in Winnipeg, which features Hailey Ryan at third, Emilie Rafnson at second and Sarah Pyke at lead, was 5-0 in the Asham Black Group and leading the six-team championship group standings heading into a matchup with Altona’s Mackenzie Zacharias (3-2) Friday night.

“We’re feeling really good right now,” Watling said. “We’re just taking all of the positives that we’ve had during the first couple of days and trying to build off of that.

“Our communication has also been really good, even if we are having a tough end. We seem to rally together and keep that positive attitude up.”

The ability to bounce back from challenging situations paid off for the Watling rink Friday morning as they faced Fleury’s East St. Paul rink (3-2).

Watling had a chance to draw for two in the ninth end, but only ended up getting a single point when her last stone picked halfway down the ice.

Despite not having the hammer coming home, the rink played a strong final frame and stole their way to a 9-7 victory when Fleury missed a takeout attempt on her last in the 10th.

“It was unfortunate that we had that pick but we were familiar with being up one without hammer as we were in that situation Thursday against Kaitlyn (Jones) and we stole a point in the 10th there,” Watling said. “We grinded things out and it worked out in our favour.”

When Watling reached the championship round in 2020, it was already known that her lineup ­— which included Christine McKay at third, Taylor Maida at second and Katrina Thiessen at lead — was going to have a different look to it for the following campaign.

“When COVID-19 happened, we had brought in Sarah and Hailey and we were going to have a five-player lineup with Taylor and Katrina,” Watling said. “When we got together prior to this season, Taylor and Katrina both felt that they needed to step back and focus on their careers, which we were very supportive of.

“When Abby Ackland’s team made a switch (by adding Kaitlyn Jones to their lineup), we were able to bring Emilie in and everything just fell into place.”

Heading into the women’s provincials, the Watling rink had reached the final at two cashspiels, in Moose Jaw and Winnipeg, where they lost to Saskatchewan’s Penny Barker and Jamie Sinclair of the United States respectively.

“Coming into the season, we really just wanted to grow as a team,” Watling said. “We kept our expectations pretty low, seeing that it was our first year together and we really didn’t know what our schedule was going to be like.

“We were lucky to travel a little bit and secure our spot in the Scotties early. That really allowed us to plan things out as we got ready for this week.”

Assiniboine Memorial clubmates Darcy Robertson and Jones were 4-1 going into the championship group, as was Kristy McDonald’s Granite quartet.

Robertson suffered her first loss of the week in the final game of the Asham Express Red Group on Friday afternoon as they suffered a 5-4 setback to Carberry’s Alyssa Calvert (1-4).

“Even though we had a two-point lead coming home without hammer, we hadn’t had the last stone coming home all week and it hadn’t worked out too well for us,” Calvert joked. “It ended up in our favour today.”

Zacharias (3-2) earned the last spot in the championship group by defeating Beth Peterson’s Assiniboine Memorial rink (2-3) by a score of 9-4 in a win-or-go-home affair.

The turning point came in the seventh end when Zacharias scored three points and Peterson’s team elected to shake hands.

“It took us four games to get rolling but we’re definitely feeling a lot better about how we’re playing,” Zacharias said. “We had a much better feel of our draw weight and what the ice was doing. Hopefully we can take what we found in that game and keep moving forward.”

While the Fleury rink, who entered the week as the No. 1 seed, enters the championship round in a tie for fifth with Zacharias, they feel like they aren’t that far off of where they want to be.

“It’s just a matter of being more precise and getting our rocks in the right place,” third Selena Njegovan said.

“We’re all throwing well but we’ve just been on the wrong side of the inch a couple of times.”

Peterson, Calvert, St. Vital’s Shae Bevan (2-3), East St. Paul’s Meghan Walter (1-4), Neepawa’s Terry Ursel (1-4) and Miami’s Jennifer Clark-Rouire (0-5) saw their tournament end Friday.

The championship round runs through today with the semifinal and final slated for Sunday.

The winner will go on to represent Manitoba at the 2022 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Thunder Bay, Ont. from Jan. 28-Feb. 6.

— the Brandon Sun