News Tour Challenge

CRANBROOK, B.C. — Michelle Englot and her Winnipeg-based team are through to the semifinals at the Tour Challenge after stunning Ottawa’s Rachel Homan 7-5 Saturday in the women’s quarterfinals. 

It was the first and only loss of the tournament for the five-time Grand Slam champion Homan, who posted a perfect 4-0 record in pool play. Englot went 2-2 and took a detour through the tiebreakers scoring a 7-2 win over Calgary’s Chelsea Carey in order to qualify for the quarterfinals.

The seventh-seeded Englot scored three points in the second end to take a 3-2 lead and kept pace with Homan as the teams exchanged singles back and forth in the third and fifth ends followed by deuces in the sixth and seventh. Homan held the hammer in the eighth needing a tricky shot to score two for the win, however, her double raise missed the counter stone and Englot tacked on a single steal to hold on. 

Englot will play Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg, who topped Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones 7-5 to advance to the semifinals. Hasselborg held the hammer in the eighth end trailing by one and sat three stones after her first skip shot and didn’t need to throw her last. Jones made a desperate throw with six seconds left on her clock and flashed through the port untouched. 

Recent Masters winner Allison Flaxey of Caledon, Ont., extended her Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling series winning streak to 10 games with a 5-3 victory over Edmonton’s Kelsey Rocque. After giving up a steal in the fifth to trail by one, Flaxey bounced back big time in the sixth making a triple on her first skip stone then had an opportunity to draw for three with her last after Rocque’s stone rolled through the rings. Rocque gave up a steal in the seventh and ran out of options in eight.

The two-time world junior winner Rocque was playing in her second straight game of the day after earning a 7-1 rout over defending champ Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland during the morning tiebreaker. 

Flaxey will face Edmonton’s Val Sweeting, who stole a spot in the semifinals clipping Tracy Fleury of Sudbury, Ont., 7-5. Fleury held the hammer coming home all knotted up but crashed on a guard. 

The men’s quarterfinals get underway at 4 p.m. MT on Sportsnet ONE and Sportsnet NOW with both men’s and women’s semifinals at 8 p.m. MT on Sportsnet and Sportsnet NOW.

NOTES: The Tour Challenge is the second of seven events on the 2016-17 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling schedule. … All Tier 1 games will be played at Western Financial Place. Tier 2 division games are now underway at Memorial Arena. … The Tour Challenge runs through to Sunday at Western Financial Place (all Tier 1 games and Tier 2 finals) and Memorial Arena (Tier 2 games from round-robin play to semifinals).