Manitoba comes up short at Scotties

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This article was published 20/02/2019 (1883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SYDNEY, N.S. — The future is partially out of her hands now, but Jennifer Jones is still in it. By a thread only, by the skin of her teeth, but it has felt like that ever since just the third day of competition. So as this wild Scotties careens to the finish line, all Jones can do is put down the broom and hang on.

Going into the championship round at the 2019 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, the defending Canadian champion knew she needed to run the table. On Thursday, that mission was only half successful: she eked out a 10-8 comeback win over Alberta’s Chelsea Carey in the afternoon draw, but couldn’t sneak past Rachel Homan at night.

“I don’t think we can afford any more, and that might have been too many,” a disappointed Jones said after the 9-6 loss to Homan’s Ontario squad. “You never know how it’s going to fall out. But we’ll just come out tomorrow and give it a go, and see what happens.”

There had been some bright news for Jones during the day. In the afternoon, TSN announced its panel had voted her the greatest Canadan skip of all time (Jones’ lead Dawn McEwen and former longtime second Jill Officer had already earned the same nod at their positions). Against Carey, Jones tied Colleen Jones’ all-time record of 140 Scotties wins as a skip.

She could have broke the record against Homan, and nearly did. Jones curled a strong game after giving up a three-spot in the second end. She collected her own trio in the seventh after some misses by the Ontario champion. In the ninth, Homan chose to give Jones a steal of one in order to keep the hammer in a tie game coming home.

That decision almost backfired. Jones put together a fine 10th end without the hammer and was cooking up a dangerous threat to steal. But her last shot, an attempt at burying a draw that would have been hard to dislodge, didn’t get behind cover. It left Homan a straightforward hit for three and the Ontario skip didn’t miss.

“We were just guessing,” Jones said of the last one. “If it gets to the slide path, it’s good weight. It didn’t get to the slide path, and it’s heavy. The difference between the slide path and wider is about eight to 10 feet, so it’s really hard. You’re kind of guessing. And unfortunately, I guessed wrong.”

It’s not over. The standings are a jumble, and the first two games of the championship round did little to clarify matters: of the eight teams standing on Thursday morning, all eight were still standing at night. In many years, four losses at the Scotties is too many for the playoffs; this time around, it could very well earn at least a tiebreaker.

So there is still a path forward for Jones, third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jocelyn Peterman and McEwen. Today, they face Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville (6-3) in the 12:30 p.m. draw; at night, they go up against British Columbia’s Sarah Wark (5-4). To stay alive, they will need to win out and get a little help from the field.

Even Jones says she can’t quite remember a Scotties where so many teams were still in contention going into the final two draws. It’s not only that the current format, installed at the Scotties and Brier last year, loads the most meaningful matchups at the end of the week. There have also just been so many surprises.

“To be honest, I think part of it is that the ice is so challenging,” she said. “There’s some missed shots you don’t normally see. It’s tough.”

Of all of those surprises, Wark has been, perhaps, the best story of the Scotties. She entered without many expectations on her shoulders: a first-time contender leading an Abbotsford team with little elite experience. Yet they have been wonderful in Sydney, giving top teams a run for their money and beating Manitoba twice.

The most critical of those two wins was the one that finally dashed Manitoba skip Tracy Fleury’s hopes. On Thursday morning, the two teams met in a tiebreaker, vying for a pass into the top eight. For the buffalo gals, it would end in a heartbreaker, with a couple of B.C. three-enders leading to an 8-5 loss.

It’s hard to pin down what went wrong this week for Fleury, third Selena Njegovan, second Liz Fyfe and lead Kristin MacCuish. They started the week slow, then seemed to rally for a critical win over Homan. But in the end, they — like Jones, for that matter — remained just a little bit off their usual game.

“We’ll have to do some reflecting after this, to figure it out,” Fyfe said. “We didn’t feel like we played bad, we just missed key shots at key times. And that made a really big difference in most of the games that we lost, which obviously cost us. For whatever reason, we couldn’t get it going here.”

Manitoba, maybe, deserved better. Pool play is imperfect, but the fact is that Jones finished 4-3 and still has the chance to play the weekend. Fleury went 4-3 in what was a tougher pool, and was going home. So it’s hard not to wonder what might have been, had Manitoba beaten Team B.C. in the tiebreaker.

Then again, the other fact is they didn’t beat B.C. in the tiebreaker. Fleury struggled with draw weight and, as she claimed responsibility for right away, she just wasn’t sharp enough to win. That’s how any sport goes: it’s not always about what is perfectly fair, only about what you do with the opportunities you have.

So Manitoba was going home early, after coming in with high hopes. Their season isn’t quite over. There is still the Players Championship in April, and the team is looking forward to that. It was just their first season with Fleury at the helm, and the combo showed promise. Now, they’ll turn their goals to the future.

“I’m having a blast with these girls,” Fleury said. “They’re a lot of fun to play with, and they’re really talented. So I feel really fortunate.”

 

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca