Players’ Championship Live: Muirhead wins Players’
TORONTO — All Scotland’s Eve Muirhead does in Toronto is win championships.
Muirhead captured her third Players’ Championship title at Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre over four years defeating Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones 9-6 in the women’s final of the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling major tournament.
Team Muirhead opened with the hammer and their skip had to bail them out early making a clutch come-around draw to the button with Jones sitting four counters in the house plus two guards above the house.
Jones looked for a big score in the second but didn’t get the right angle on her runback attempt and gave up a steal of one. The five-time Players’ winner Jones made another high-pressure shot in the third, but it paid off as she made a straight runback double to count three for a 3-2 advantage.
Muirhead reclaimed the lead 4-3 with a double for a deuce in four but Jones kept it tight hitting and rolling onto the button to tie it in five.
Muirhead grabbed the lead for good in six making a double with her first skip stone and then drawing for three with her last to go up 7-4. Jones closed the gap to within one with a deuce in seven, but gave up the hammer coming home.
Team Muirhead relied on spare Cathy Overton-Clapham to sub for the injured Anna Sloan, who will miss the rest of the season due to an ACL injury. Overton-Clapham, who won three Players’ titles while playing with Jones, continued her “super spare” role after also capturing the 2014 Masters filling in on Val Sweeting’s team.
Earlier Sunday, Jones defeated Kerri Einarson 6-4 in an all-Manitoba team women’s semifinal to clinch a berth into the 2017 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials. The spot was up for grabs after Scotties champ Chelsea Carey finished off of the podium at the worlds and eligible for the CTRS points leader over the season. Jones won the last trials and captured the gold medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Ottawa’s Rachel Homan won this season’s Rogers Grand Slam Cup women’s title as the overall season champion earning a $75,000 bonus. Homan was stunned in the quarterfinals of the Players’ losing 7-6 to Einarson.
The Players’ Championship men’s final sees defending champ Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., playing Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L. Gushue clinched the Rogers Grand Slam Cup men’s title and looks to complete a career Grand Slam having won the other three majors. Watch on Sportsnet ONE at 5 p.m. ET.
