MOOSE JAW, Sask. – The province of Manitoba has produced some of this country’s greatest curlers.
This year’s Scotties in Moose Jaw is once again highlighting it.
Jennifer Jones, who made her way into this year’s championship by winning the Wild Card game one week ago, is into the 1 vs 2 playoff game on Saturday against Team Manitoba, skipped by Kerri Einarson.
It’s a rematch of this year’s Manitoba provincial final – a game Einarson won.
It’s also a rematch of the 2018 Scotties final – Jones won that big prize.
Now the two familiar foes meet again with the winner advancing to Sunday’s championship game.
Einarson has been close to winning Canada’s crown jewel of curling before, and is ranked third in the world right now. They finished with a 9-2 record and other than the two losses, have been superb from start to finish.
Einarson did, however, give up a record-making seven-ender against New Brunswick – something the team isn’t concerned about at all.
“What seven?” Einarson said. “That’s how we look at it. We threw it in the bag. Threw it away. We’re rolling right along now.”
WATCH | Jones punches ticket to Scotties playoffs:
Jennifer Jones’ Wild Card rink beat Robyn Silvernagle’s team Saskatchewan 8-4 to book a spot in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts playoffs. 0:33
Jones has been there, done that. In fact, she’s chasing history in Moose Jaw.
If Jennifer Jones is able to capture this year’s Scotties, it’ll be her seventh. No other skip has done that. She also won the championship the last time it was in Moose Jaw five years ago.
“We’re in a really good spot right now,” Jones said. “All in all, we’re feeling really good but we’re playing some really tough teams.”
The two teams will battle Saturday night inside Mosaic Place.
Another playoff provincial rivalry
So while two Manitoba teams will battle for a spot in the Scotties final, earlier in the day Saturday two Ontario teams will play to stay alive.
The winner plays the loser of Jones versus Einarson while the loser is out of the competition.
Rachel Homan and her Ontario team play Northern Ontario. Skip Krista McCarville, from Thunder Bay, has once again found herself in the final four at a Scotties.
But never before, like Einarson, has she been able to win it all. McCarville lost the Scotties championship game four years ago to Chelsea Carey in Grand Prairie.
There was a time during this week it looked as though the team might miss the playoffs all together after a shocking loss to Nunavut. Since then, they haven’t lost.
The game following that loss to Nunavut, McCarville curled 100 per cent.
WATCH | McCarville throws perfect game against Walker:
Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville threw a perfect game in a 4-3 wi. over Alberta’s Laura Walker. 0:42
She plays her best with her back against the wall.
“I don’t know what it is. We just need that intensity. We need that focus,” McCarville said.
While McCarville enjoys the pressure, she says she’s taken a different approach to this year’s Scotties.
“I just wanted to have fun this year because when you’re uptight you don’t play well,” she said.
“I honestly feel better this year. Usually I’m so nervous at this point.”
She’s playing free and says her Northern Ontario team has been working toward this moment all season.
“We play for the Scotties. This is where we want to be,” McCarville. “This is what I play for.”
Redemption for Homan?
Consider the last two years for Homan.
There was the disappointment of the Olympics.
Then there was the disappointment of last year’s Scotties final, when she had two shots to win the championship, only to come up short.
This past summer, she gave birth to her first child, a baby boy.
It has been an emotional roller coaster for Homan and yet she continues to curl at an incredibly high level – now in another playoff battle at the Scotties.
WATCH | Homan wins championship round opener:
Rachel Homan’s Ontario rink defeated Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville 9-4 to open the championship round at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. 1:01
“A Scotties is a grind and a long week,” Homan said. “We’re going to try and outlast the rest of them.”
Homan has won the championship three times, her last title coming three years ago in St. Catharines.
She’d love nothing more than to get back to another title game.
“You have to stay in the moment. We’re all top teams and we’re all battling. We’re just staying in the moment,” she said.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
