Jones clears path to Canada Cup final by defeating Homan
Gushue tops men's side with win over Carruthers
Jennifer Jones downed defending champion Rachel Homan 8-6 in a showdown for first place as the seven-team round robin concluded Friday night.
Jones finished first at 5-1. Homan was 4-2 and advanced to the event's semifinal on Saturday.
In all six round-robin games, the Jones team earned the hammer with the pre-game draw to the button. In four of the games, Jones, third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jill Officer, lead Dawn McEwen and coach Wendy Morgan came away with at least two points in the first end. In another they got one. They did surrender a first-end steal to Val Sweeting earlier Friday in what was their only loss.
"It was very nice, I'm not going to lie," said Jones of having the hammer all the way through. "It worked out really well this week. I don't know if the hammer matters as much in a 10-end game but it's definitely a nice start and we were able to get some deuces early and take control of games."
In the first end against Homan, it looked like Jones was in trouble but she ended up having an open draw for two when Homan's final shot nicked a guard.
"We made a skip's deuce in the first end when the end wasn't going our way. It kind of changed the momentum early. It was key tonight and hopefully key in the final," Jones said.
The bonus for Jones is by finishing first her team automatically receives the first-end hammer.
"We wanted to win that one, get ourselves into the final and get a day off, and I thought we came out and played well and took advantage of a couple of misses by them, and never really looked back,"Jones said.
'Mutual respect among teams'
Jones dismissed a suggestion the team had sent a message to Homan's.
"We play each other so much over the course of the year and there's a mutual respect amongst all of the teams. I don't know if it's about sending a message, but we're playing well and hopefully we win one more game and capture the Canada Cup," Jones said.
Homan will face the winner of a tiebreaker between Kerri Einarson of Winnipeg and Edmonton's Val Sweeting, who beat Jones 6-4 Friday afternoon to finish 3-3. Einarson earned her spot by downing Chelsea Carey of Calgary 8-6. It was a game in which the winner was guaranteed a tiebreaker spot.
"That feels awesome. I just wish we would have played like that my last couple of games or else we wouldn't be in the tiebreaker right now," said Einarson. "But that's OK. We'll just come out and hopefully shoot like that tomorrow.
"We get a chance and that's all we asked for when we came to this event."
Gushue tops men's side
On the men's side, Toronto's John Epping did his team and three others a big favour, although one of them didn't take advantage, by edging 2014 Olympic champion Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., 7-6 in the final draw.
After all the rocks had cleared, Epping, Jacobs and Saskatoon's Steve Laycock were all tied for third with 3-3 records, forcing a pair of tiebreaker games Saturday. Winnipeg's Mike McEwen also had a shot at joining them but suffered a 7-6 extra-end loss to defending champion Kevin Koe of Calgary. McEwen and Koe finished at the bottom of the standings at 2-4.
Jacobs will play Laycock Saturday morning, with the winner facing Epping at later in the day for the right to advance to Saturday night's semifinal against Reid Carruthers of Winnipeg. Like Carruthers, the Brad Gushue team skipped by Mark Nichols, finished the round robin 4-2 but was awarded the bye into Sunday's final by virtue of a 7-6 victory over Carruthers on Thursday.
Jacobs could have made all the nightmare tiebreaker scenarios moot by beating Epping. All of the team's good work in establishing a 4-2 lead after six ends Friday evaporated when Epping scored three in the seventh and stole two more in the eighth.
"It kind of looked like we were out of it for a while, down two and then got a very fortunate break when Brad missed – that's very rare – and took advantage of it," Epping said.
It was the third consecutive win for Epping after losing his first three games.
"If we can keep rolling, make some big shots [Saturday] then you know what, we can win two or three games easily."