Hale-Menard pulls off one of many early upsets as Scotties begins

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This article was published 11/01/2018 (3067 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

KILLARNEY — Lisa Hale-Menard has had a knack for knocking off top-five seeds on the opening day of the Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

Two years ago in Beausejour, the Dauphin skip scored three in the second, fourth and sixth ends en route to a 9-7 upset win over third-seeded Barb Spencer of Winnipeg.

On Wednesday, after Hale-Menard, third Meghan Walter, second Emilie Rafnson and lead Laurie Macdonell gave up five stolen points in an opening 9-2 loss to top seed Jennifer Jones at the Shamrock Centre, the Parkland squad rebounded with a 10-4 triumph over No. 4 Shannon Birchard of Winnipeg.

“We went into that game and our number one goal was just to play well, whether we came out of it with a win or not was irrelevant,” Hale-Menard said. “It’s just let’s improve on what happened in the morning, get a better feel for the ice and the girls played great.”

Trailing 2-1 after three ends, Menard was perfect on a double takeout in the fourth end and her shooter stuck around in the 12-foot area for four and a 5-2 lead.

Jump ahead to the eighth and up 6-4, Hale-Menard executed the shot of the day for another four ender to finish the game when a steal appeared very likely.

With Birchard sitting one in a tiny opening on the centre-line, Menard threw board weight between two opposition guards — one high and one tighter to the house — just before narrowly missing her own stone in the eight-foot area and taking out Birchard’s stone, the shooter rolling but remaining in the paint.

“That was about as good as we could have made it,” Hale-Menard said. “We had to paper that yellow one that was in the top eight and if we overcurled it we were going to hit the guard on the top so there really wasn’t much room for error.”

However, she wasn’t the only one to take out a top five seed in the Asham Black Group as Carberry’s Alyssa Calvert scored three in the third end and three more in the seventh in topping fifth-seeded Briane Meilleur, who has Brandonite Janelle Vachon at second, of Winnipeg 10-5 in the morning draw.

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Calvert, third Laryssa Stevenson, second Kylee Calvert and lead Lindsay Baldock, struggled to find their shot-making in the late afternoon draw. They gave up three in the third and sixth ends and fell 8-5 to young Winnipeg skip Kristy Watling.

Despite the loss to Watling, Alyssa Calvert was pleased with the first day’s efforts.

“I’m really happy,” she said. “There were a couple bad threes in that game but we just wanted to make her throw her last and she had to. We got better and that’s what you want to do with every game and go from there.”

Calvert noted strong communication was the reason for her team’s strong play for most of Wednesday.

“We had really good communication in the morning and we lost that a little bit in the first six ends this game, and then we got it back in the last four,” she added. “When we communicated and were talking about speed and paths and line we seemed to get more positive results out of our shots.

“We’re still learning the ice and figuring out how to put everything together.”

The result is still a 1-1 record, the same standing of all eight teams in her pool.

That’s because Winnipeg’s Joelle Brown recorded the biggest stunner of the day, taking out 12-time national Scotties skip Jennifer Jones 9-5. Brown lost 7-6 to Jennifer Briscoe of Thompson in the morning.

Brown and Jones were deadlocked at 4-4 after six ends and after Brown picked up a single in seven, Jones faced four with her final stone in eight. She wrecked on a guard out front and the end result was a 9-5 loss for the favourite.

Brown hopes her victory over Jones gives her team more confidence as they head into the remaining five pool-play games.

“It gives us a whole lot more confidence going into the week which is good even though I didn’t play well in the morning,” she said. “We still had a close game and it could have gone either way and it was a one-point game in the end.

“We were throwing it better, we were way more comfortable with the ice, so I do think it does give us a whole lot more confidence going forward in the week.”

The two Brandon club teams dropped their openers in Draw 2, with skip Cheryl Reed, third Sam Murata, second Pam Robins and lead Roslyn Taylor losing 8-1 to Spencer early in the afternoon.

Tiffany McLean, third Mallory Black, second Hayley Surovy and lead Cassandra Lesiuk were up 4-2 on Darcy Robertson — last year’s runner-up — after three ends, but a sixth-end steal of four swung momentum in Robertson’s direction. She eventually beat McLean 12-6.

Nonetheless, Black wasn’t too disappointed by her team’s opening-draw effort. They simply need to execute.

“It’s just trusting the ice, we’re not used to as much curl as we are seeing,” she said. “We knew that it was going to be there and we just need to trust that it will curl and we will do what we want it to do.”

McLean’s second game versus 2016 Manitoba champion Kerri Einarson (1-0) of East St. Paul was still in progress at press time, along with Reed’s game against Miami’s Jennifer Clark-Rouire (0-1).

EXTRA ENDS: Spencer not only added to her all-time record with her 109th career victory at the Scotties, but did so in her record 163rd career game, breaking out of a tie with Janet Harvey for the top spot alone in the win over Reed … Robertson has 105 wins in 162 career games.

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