Homan to meet Jones in Canada Cup final
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/12/2016 (3396 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Rachel Homan has earned another matchup with Jennifer Jones. This time the Home Hardware Canada Cup of Curling is on the line.
Homan and her Ottawa team of Emma Miskew, Joanne Courtney and Lisa Weagle stole three in the fourth end and never looked back in a 9-4 win over Winnipeg’s Kerri Einarson in the women’s semifinal at Westman Place Saturday afternoon. Even though Jones and Homan have won a lot of championships in the last few years, Homan isn’t making a big deal about another meeting on Sunday at 1:30 p.m.
“It’s just another final and another opportunity to prepare for the Olympic Trials next year,” she said. “We’re just taking this one shot at a time and making sure we’re in the moment because it’s a big game.”
Homan and Jones already have their 2017 Olympic Trials spots secured. The berth to the Roar of the Rings in Ottawa that was available at the Canada Cup now goes to one of the top teams based on the Canadian Team Rankings Points for the 2016-17 season.
Homan started the semifinal slow, nosing on a blank attempt in the first end and rubbing a guard in the second, which allowed Einarson to make a double for two.
After Homan was forced to one in the third, the tide turned in the fourth. Homan was able to lay three and forced Einarson to draw the button with a turn they hadn’t used during the end.
Einarson was guessing a bit on the ice and weight and she came up short, giving up three to one of the best hitting teams in the country.
“We weren’t quite sure what it was going to do and I was a little soft on (the release) so it just broke right out of my hand,” Einarson said. “It was there, but it just had to be a little more positive.”
Meanwhile, John Epping of Toronto has advanced to the men’s semifinal this evening courtesy of a 7-5 win over Saskatoon’s Steve Laycock in the second tiebreaker.
Epping opened the game with a deuce and then got a big break when Laycock, who beat Brad Jacobs 9-3 in another tiebreaker earlier in the day, flashed an open hit to blank the second, putting himself in an early 3-0 deficit.
“It was a straight spot in the ice, but I had ice where if the ice doesn’t fall then I hit it and the ice doesn’t fall six inches,” Laycock said. “I just drifted it a bit and it was one I could have got away with a nose hit the way he was sitting in the house.”
Epping put the game away with a triple takeout for two in the eighth end to make it 7-4, but he said the turning point for the event came during a team meeting on Thursday.
His foursome of Mathew Camm, Patrick Janssen and Tim March had a meeting after starting the round robin 0-3 that got them back on track to win their final three games to secure a spot in the tiebreaker.
“I just kind of led the meeting and I don’t want to say I was hard on the guys, but I said we had to bare down and we were struggling with our technical tendencies, we were all over the map,” Epping said. “We had some great practices before we came here and went back to our old ways. Just told the boys to really focus on the technical side and it will come naturally and they’ll throw the rock a lot better.”
It worked as Epping has advanced to this evening’s semifinal against Winnipeg’s Reid Carruthers.
Epping expects the crowd to be cheering on the Manitoba foursome, and he’s fine with that.
“That’s the story of my life,” he said. “We played in the semifinal last year against (Kevin) Koe in Grande Prairie; that makes no difference for us. Probably the rest of the way the crowd won’t be cheering for us as the crowd seems to love Team Gushue as well if we happen to make the final.
“They’ve been a very gracious crowd. I know they’ll still give us applause but they should be rooting for Carruthers.”
EXTRA END: Brandon has broken Moose Jaw’s record for highest attendance at a Canada Cup. It was set at 33,160 in 2012. Prior to Saturday’s evening’s draw, Brandon’s total attendance was 37,480.
» cjaster@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @jasterch