THUNDER BAY – For Nicole Westlund-Stewart, the Tbaytel Major League of Curling season has been all about building up to peak in time for the Northern Ontario Scotties.
The team, which consists of Megan Carr, Samantha Morris and Rebecca Carr, on Wednesday night showed it can play under pressure, rallying from a 6-3 deficit to edge Bryan Burgess 8-6, stealing three in the eighth end to pick up its second win of the season.
“We tried just to focus one end at a time and focus on our goal for that end, and stay in it until there were no more rocks left,” Westlund-Stewart said.
“My players made their shots and were setting up the end really well. I decided on my first (shot) to go for it. That was our only chance to make the tap to set up the potential tie or win for us. We went for it and made it and we had some help from the other team, of course.”
A bit of misfortune cost Burgess in the seventh.
Looking to remove a Westlund-Stewart stone to score two, his final shot picked, made a hard left turn and instead Burgess gave up a steal of one, his lead cut to just 6-5.
Getting the win was great, Westlund-Stewart (2-0-5-2), who moved into a tie for 10th with Kory Carr, leapfrogging Ben Mikkelsen, Jodi Judd and closing to within five points of a playoff spot.
“We’re a brand-new team, so we’re kind of learning, trying to get games in together and trying to build the wins,” she said.
Two sheets over, it was a battle between spouses, Krista McCarville and Sarah Potts looking for bragging rights against their husbands, Mike McCarville and Jordan Potts, who play on Trevor Bonot’s foursome.
Coming off a win last week, the defending Scotties semifinalists were looking to stay on roll. McCarville, Ashley Sippala, Ptts and Oye-Sem Won jumped out to a 4-1 lead, picking up steals in the third and fourth. Bonot battled back with a pair in the fifth and stole another in the seventh to tie the match 4-4, giving McCarville the hammer heading home.
She made the most of it.
“The last end, there were a lot of rocks in play, but a lot of the angles were kind of in our favour, so they had to kind of make some moves. We didn’t have to quite as much, so it was a little more thinking on their part, a little less thinking on our part,” McCarville said.
“The angles seemed to work out really nice and Oye made a really nice one on her last one to set up a tougher one on them. They were missing by an inch here or an inch there and gave us the chance to make some easier shots.”
Bonot (6-0-2-1) attempted to bank his final shot off his own stone, the plan to roll into scoring position, but couldn’t execute, leaving McCarville (4-1-3-1) with the point she needed for the 5-4 win. McCarville is tied for sixth with Denis Malette (4-1-3-1), who blanked Al Hackner’s replacement squad 6-0.
In other action, Brian Adams Jr. climbed past Hackner to claim top spot in the standings, edging Kory Carr 4-3. Ron Rosengren only needed six ends to knock off Ben Mikkelsen 7-3, Gary Weiss and Judd shook hands after five, Weiss winning 8-1 and Dylan Johnston kept his playoff hopes alive with a 10-4 win over Dallas Burgess.
