News Canadian Open

NORTH BATTLEFORD, Sask. — Ottawa’s Rachel Homan made Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling history winning her record 10th women’s title.

Homan edged Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland 4-3 in the Meridian Canadian Open women’s final Sunday at Civic Centre.

The team of Homan, third Emma Miskew, second Joanne Courtney and lead Lisa Weagle earned $30,000 of the $250,000 total purse.

Here is how it all went down:

1ST END (4:25 p.m. ET): Homan opened with the hammer but crashed and burned on a guard to give up a steal. TIRINZONI 1, HOMAN 0

2ND END (4:42 p.m. ET): You can’t hide from Alina Paetz. Team Tirinzoni’s fourth rock thrower navigated through the narrow port to pick out Homan’s shot rock and sit two. That forced Homan to draw for just a single. TIRINZONI 1, HOMAN 1

3RD END (4:57 p.m. ET): Just clean as Paetz made the peel to blank and retain the hammer for Team Tirinzoni. TIRINZONI 1, HOMAN 1

4TH END (5:10 p.m. ET): Paetz is drawing a blank. Tirinzoni had been throwing perfectly until her second stone rolled right through the rings and it was back and forth hits from there until Homan’s last connected and rolled out. Paetz threw her last away for another blank. TIRINZONI 1, HOMAN 1

5TH END (5:33 p.m. ET): Risk but no reward. Paetz took on a gutsy runback double attempt to try and remove Homan’s shot stone but missed the mark. HOMAN 2, TIRINZONI 1

6TH END (5:55 p.m. ET): Make way for Homan, coming through. Homan bumped one of her rocks and it nudged over underneath to cover the pinhole for shot stone. Paetz again attempted a runback that went awry. HOMAN 3, TIRINZONI 1

7TH END (6:13 p.m. ET): Plan B for Paetz turned out better than Plan A. Paetz looked to make an in-off but connected with the wrong one but still rolled into the house and knocked out Homan’s shot stone to score two. HOMAN 3, TIRINZONI 3

Team Homan carried over their momentum from the end of last year into 2019 appearing in their fourth consecutive Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling final. Homan finished runner-up at the Canadian Beef Masters and captured back-to-back titles at the Tour Challenge and Boost National.

The undefeated Team Homan qualified for the playoffs through the A Event of the triple knockout at 3-0, eliminated Team Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge, Alta., in the quarterfinals and Team Nina Roth of the United States in the semis on Saturday.

Team Tirinzoni ousted Jones in the C Event finals Friday night to squeeze into the playoff picture, eliminated North Battleford’s own Team Robyn Silvernagle in the quarterfinals and cooled Team Eve Muirhead of Scotland in the semis. Tirinzoni, who topped Homan to win the 2015 Tour Challenge title, appeared in her second Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling final this season finishing runner-up to Anna Hasselborg’s Swedish squad at the Princess Auto Elite 10 in September.

The Meridian Canadian Open is the only one of the seven Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling tournaments to use a 16-team triple knockout preliminary format — instead of round-robin pool play — where teams must win three games before they lose three in order to qualify for the playoffs.

Earlier, Edmonton’s Team Brendan Bottcher completed an undefeated run on the men’s side beating Toronto’s Team John Epping 6-3 to win their first Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling championship.

NOTES: The Meridian Canadian Open was the fifth event and third major of the 2018-19 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season. The series takes a bit of a break resuming with the Players’ Championship in Toronto running April 9-14. … Standard Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling rules apply: games are played to eight ends, the five-rock rule is in effect and teams receive 33 minutes of thinking time plus two, 90-second timeouts.