THUNDER BAY – Mistakes, they made a few.
For Krista McCarville’s Team Northern Ontario, the missteps and miscues they made in Friday night’s opener to kick off the Scotties Tournament of Hearts at Fort William Gardens were just too costly to overcome.
McCarville, lead Ashley Sippala, second Kendra Lilly and third Andrea Kelly, gave up a costly three-ender in the second, fell behind 5-1 through four, and despite a valiant comeback effort in the second-half of their match, they were unable to get the steal they needed in the 10th to force an extra end against Saskatchewan’s Nancy Martin.
Instead, Martin, whose team includes lead Deann Doig, second Kadriana Lott and third Chaelynn Stewart, was left with a hit for three on her final stone of the night and pulled out a 10-6 win, handing McCarville a loss to the disappointment of a decidedly biased crowd cheering McCarville on.
It was tough going in the early stages of the match, said the 42-year-old Thunder Bay skip.
“We struggled with draw weight there … We’ve talked about this over and over all year, basically trying to make sure we finished the rock so that it carries the rock a little bit further. I think we struggled a little bit with that. We just didn’t have our positive releases that we usually do,” McCarville said.
In the second, after the two teams blanked the opening end, McCarville crashed, nudging a Martin stone to the edge of the rings.
Martin, with her final shot, bumped it in and spun her shooter into the house too, to score three and take early control of the match.
McCarville got one back in the second, but with rocks piling up in the rings, she was forced to throw up a guard on her final shot, facing a pair of Saskatchewan rocks in scoring position, choosing to give up a deuce, rather than risk a really crooked number.
The Northern Ontario rink was able to battle back, closing the gap to 5-3 in the fourth and 6-5 in the seventh.
But facing a makeable hit-and-roll for two in the ninth and a chance to even the score with one end to go, McCarville’s final rock bounced a little too far and she was only able to snag a single, leaving her down one without hammer in the 10th.
“That would have been a really big one, but again we’d have to steal in the last end. It’s nice to have to steal one, rather than two, but we ultimately wanted to steal one anyway. It just over-curled by a little bit and we didn’t get that second point,” she said.
While losing wasn’t part of the game plan, it’s in the past, said McCarville, who curled just 66 per cent, the team just 72 per cent on the night.
“We struggled in the first half, we picked it up in the second half, so that’s what we have to focus on,” said McCarville, whose job doesn’t get any easier on Saturday, with defending champion Rachel Homan on deck.
“We basically want to make sure we pick it up a little faster on the ice and make we can feel the ice and feel our draw weight and go out there and just try our best,” McCarville said.
British Columbia’s Corryn Brown had a much easier time of it on Friday night, opening with an 11-4 win over Alberta’s Selena Sturmay, scoring multiple points in four separate ends to pull out the victory, despite not arriving in Thunder Bay until 3:30 a.m. on Friday – a journey that began on Tuesday evening in Kamloops, B.C.
“We were really focusing on one rock at a time, just really simplifying it today, just given the fact we are really fatigued and had a long journey here. We’re really fortunate we came out firing,” Brown said.
Homan opened with a win, downing Prince Edward Island’s Jane DiCarlo 13-4 and Alberta’s Kayla Skrlik doubled up New Brunswick’s Melissa Adams 8-4.
