Silvernagle and her rink of third Stefanie Lawton, second Jessie Hunkin and lead Kara Thevenot dropped a 4-3 extra-end decision to Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville in the final draw, and combined with New Brunswick’s Andrea Crawford defeating Canada’s Chelsea Carey, created three-team logjam at 4-2 for the final two championship pool spot.
Because Carey had the better cumulative total for the last-draw-to-the-button-for-hamer through the round robin, she automatically advanced as the pool’s third seed, with Silvernagle and Crawford playing at 8 a.m. on Thursday to determine the final berth.
“You know what, we played a great game and we had a few opportunities, and the best part about it is we’re not dead,” said Thevenot. “We still have life, so now it’s about getting some rest and coming out for tomorrow’s game firing.”
The quick turnaround isn’t much of a concern for the North Battleford rink, as they’re coming off a season filled with preparation for exactly such moments.
“I’m kind of the person when the game is over you leave it on the ice and it’s done,” Thevenot said. You can’t sit there and criticize and say you would have done this or this, now we just move forward and focus on tomorrow… we train for stuff like this and we all have mental toughness for this, so it’s a matter of getting good rest and getting ready.”
McCarville, third Kendra Lilly, second Ashley Sippala and lead Jennifer Gates finished 5-2 and second in Pool A with the win.
“We knew looking at our schedule right from day one that today was going to be a tough day, and coming in with two losses you have to win to stay alive and try to avoid tiebreakers,” McCarville said. “And going into the championship pool with one less loss is great, too. We know there are some great teams on the other side and we’re going to have to play our best if we want to win this.”
All you need to know about Chelsea Carey and Team Canada’s mindset after their loss to Crawford is how Carey reacted to the potential of playing in a tiebreaker game.
As her contest ended about half an hour before the situation was settled, Carey was resigned to playing in an extra contest.
And?
“It’s just one more game, we didn’t do it tonight, we’ll do it tomorrow, same difference,” Carey said.
Simple as that.
As it stands, Carey, third Sarah Wilkes, second Dana Ferguson and lead Rachel Brown didn’t have to worry, as despite dropping a 7-5 decision they directly moved on.
Crawford, meanwhile, has been on a roll, with her rink of Jennifer Armstrong, second Jill Babin and lead Katie Forward having won their last four straight, including their 7-5 win over Carey.
“It was huge, we’re pretty excited, especially based on how we started this week,” Crawford said. “We really wanted to get some good games in starting Monday, and then we started to get on a roll and picked it up a bit more each game. I think tonight was probably our best game.
“We’re playing well enough, we’d change a shot here or there, but I think we’re happy with how we’re performing and if we can keep that going it’ll do well for us.”
Lori Eddy and her Nunavut foursome are going home as a proud bunch.
Eddy, third Sadie Pinksen, second Alison Griffin and lead Kaitlin MacDonald scored one in the 10th end to take a 7-6 victory over Quebec’s Noemie Verreault in the final game of the 2020 Scotties for both teams.
“This week has completely exceeded our expectations, we were just hoping to be competitive this week and to have two wins in a field and pool this strong, we’re thrilled,” Eddy said.
For a team that finished 2-5, Nunavut certainly drew plenty of attention, with a handful of close losses getting the Mosaic Place crowds on their side draw after draw.
The whole run left Eddy near tears when talking about her crew.
“I’m so proud of those girls, they’re so young and have so many years to go and I’m just so happy that we had a positive experience and they can carry that experience going forward,” Eddy said. “I’m so, so proud of them.”
Verreault, third Alanna Routledge, second Marie-Pier Cote and lead Jill Routledge capped their first Scotties showing as a rink with an 0-7 record.
The entire Pool A playoff scenario could have been turned on its head had Alberta’s Laura Walker managed to find a way to defeat Manitoba’s Kerri Einarson in the final draw’s other contest.
Instead, Einarson and her rink of third Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard and lead Briane Mielleur rolled to an 8-5 victory to finish their preliminary pool at 6-1 and knocking Walker, third Kate Cameron, second Taylor McDonald and lead Nadine Scotland to 3-4 and out of the tiebreaker picture.
“That feels really good, we had a really solid team game there and came out sharp,” Einarson said. “We knew we were already in, but we still wanted to come out and get that last win. Since you take your wins and losses with you, you don’t want to go into the next pool with too many losses.”
Things aren’t about to get any easier with the best-of-the-best from the week that was advancing to play four more games through Friday evening.
“We’ve had a lot of tough games all this week, so we have a few more to go and if we can stay focussed and do what we do today it’ll be good,” Einarson said.
Be sure to check www.curling.ca for updated draws after the tiebreakers and ahead of the first championship pool games at 12:30 p.m.
