THUNDER BAY – Sometimes you have to be a little lucky to win.
Luck was certainly on the side of Team Northern Ontario on Monday night. With skip Krista McCarville struggling with her draw weight all night long, tossing away points seemingly end after end to the point she trailed Nunavut’s Brigitte MacPhail 5-1 through five, the hometown team caught a break in the seventh.
Down 5-3 and potentially about to give up another point to the upstart team from Canada’s Far North, looking for their second win over team McCarville in the past three Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Nunavut second Kaitlin MacDonald tumbled over a stone on MacPhail’s final throw of the seventh, spilling rocks throughout the house.
After a brief discussion with Curling Canada officials, McCarville’s team was awarded three points, taking a 6-5 lead, and went on to win 7-6 to improve to 3-1, snatching victory away from MacPhail when McCarville made a draw to the button to clinch the win with hammer in the 10th.
“Unfortunately in curling it’s going to be a decision that you have to make. We had the officials out there helping us. It was a tough one because it was really close to the house. I think we made the right call. It’s tough, because you don’t want to be bad guys out there, but we think we made the right one,’ McCarville said.
Northern Ontario lead Sarah Potts said she felt bad about the situation because she and McCarville didn’t clearly see what happened from their vantage point.
“Kendra (Lilly) saw it and she thought they weren’t hitting enough of the rock to make it and then it got burnt, so we were confident we made the right decision because we didn’t think it was being made regardless,” Potts said. “And with her hitting it, we couldn’t have known.”
McCarville, playing in her ninth Scotties, said it was a tough one from the start.
“That game was a really big struggle,” McCarville said. “But that’s curling.”
MacPhail stole one in the first, the Northern Ontario skip trying a tap-back for two, only to flash, then stole another point in the second when McCarville was long on her draw.
The Thunder Bay rink got one back in the third, but should have had a pair, needing a simple draw to the eight-foot for the extra point – but came up short this time.
After drawing for one in the fourth, Team Nunavut, which includes lead Allison Taylor, MacDonald, third Sadie Pinksen, picked up two more without hammer in the fifth, McCarville going long on her draw once again.
Things started to turn around for Northern Ontario in the fifth, but a potential three-ender wound up a deuce when McCarville came up short on yet another draw opportunity for points.
Down 6-5, MacPhail tied it in the eighth, then McCarville got the blank in nine and won it with what had to be a nail-biting draw, needing to bite the eight-foot for the win.
McCarville, who played just once on Monday, is tied for second with Tracy Fleury’s Wild Card No. 1 team, with New Brunswick’s Andrea Crawford remaining undefeated with wins over Prince Edward Island (2-3) and Saskatchewan (2-2) on Day 4 of the Scotties.
Wild Card No. 2, skipped by Chelsea Carey, joined Saskatchewan at 2-2, stealing one in the 10th to edge Newfoundland and Labrador’s Sarah Hill 5-4. Hill dropped to 1-3.
“It doesn’t feel great right now,” said Carey, who earlier in the day dropped an 8-7 decision to Saskatchewan’s Penny Barker.
“We weren’t very happy with our level of play, but in this kind of event you need to get some breaks and that was a big one, so we’ll take it and hopefully build off it tomorrow.”
In Pool B play Monday afternoon, Team Canada’s Kerri Einarson doubled up Alberta’s Laura Walker (2-2) by a 10-5 score to improve to 4-0. Manitoba’s Mackenzie Zacharias is also undefeated at 3-0, edging Ontario’s Hollie Duncan 8-7. Duncan is winless at 0-4.
Kerry Galusha (2-1) delivered a 13-4 win over Yukon’s Hailey Birnie and B.C.’s Mary-Anne Arsenault picked up her first win in four outings, beating Quebec’s Laurie St-Georges 8-5.
McCarville takes on Newfoundland and Labrador on Tuesday.
