News Champions Cup

SHERWOOD PARK, Alta. — A couple of runbacks and a couple lucky breaks helped propel Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones past Eve Muirhead of Scotland 6-2 during Draw 9 action Thursday at the Humpty’s Champions Cup.

Jones moved up to a 2-1 record while Muirhead dropped to 1-2 with one round-robin game remaining each for Friday in the season finale event.

“The crowds have been phenomenal,” Jones said. “They’re so loud and into the games that it’s a great atmosphere to play in. What a way to end the year.”

Jones, who fell to Muirhead in the Players’ Championship women’s final last week, played the first three ends conservatively with blanks and finally got on the board in the fourth by making a nifty angle raise takeout to score a deuce. 

“We kind of unfortunately slipped in a couple guards early and made it pretty simple but managed to get a nice two in the fourth end to get the lead,” Jones said. “We got some breaks along the way, we’ll take it.”

The reigning Olympic gold medallist Jones over-curled her last in the fifth but still sat first and second shot and counted them both to go up 4-0 as Muirhead came up light on the draw to concede the steal. Muirhead cut the deficit in half with a deuce in six but shook hands after Jones made a straight runback to claim another pair of points in the seventh.

Meanwhile, Japan’s Ayumi Ogasawara is through to the playoffs sitting atop of the leaderboard at 3-0 in her Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling series debut.

“This is our first time playing in the Slams but it’s not a surprising result for us,” said Ogasawara, via interpreter Daia Koyano. “We kind of expected it and it’s a little bit challenging for us but not surprising at all.” 

Ogasawara edged Team Fay of Chester, N.S., 6-5 as a close measurement in the final end gave her the decisive deuce.

“I think we got a little lucky too,” Ogasawara said with a smile. “I think it’s really important to have some good luck too. But winning is winning and it’s still a big win for us. We’ll talk about what we can do to improve and we’ll curl better tomorrow. We have three wins so far so that’s good for us.”

Team Fay (1-2) are also making their series debut. The reigning world junior champions are playing without skip Mary Fay, who is missing the event to focus on exams for her international baccalaureate program. Third Kristin Clarke has moved up to skip with Sarah Daniels of Delta, B.C., subbing at third.

Ottawa’s Rachel Homan scored a 7-1 win over Krista McCarville of Thunder Bay, Ont. Homan (2-1) took two in the first and held McCarville to one in the third end. After back-to-back blanks, Homan pulled away with another deuce in six and stole three in the seventh to finish the game. McCarville has been eliminated from contention with a 0-3 record. 

In men’s division action, Sweden’s Niklas Edin ended Brad Gushue’s epic undefeated streak in the series at 16 games with a 4-3 victory. Gushue, from St. John’s, ran the table at the past two Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling events taking the Elite 10 and Players’ Championship titles and won his first two games in the Humpty’s Champions Cup. Both skips kept it tight and played exceptionally well earning 100 percent scores. 

“We knew this was going to be a tough game,” Edin said. “I don’t think we’ve beaten them at all this season. It’s a team that’s really on a roll and really hard to beat, so I was glad we could keep it close and get a chance to win at the end and executing those last few shots was big. I’m really happy we could win and we’re still in the run for the playoffs here.”

Edin trailed by one coming home but held the hammer and got the angles right to pull off a soft double raise takeout to score the winning deuce.

Edin improved to a 2-1 record and rebounded from giving up a steal in the eighth end to lose to world junior champion Bruce Mouat of Scotland during the morning draw.

“That was huge for us because we had a really bad game this morning that we should have won,” Edin said. “We had a draw for the win and I missed that, so really needed to bounce back.”

There was a blooper moment earlier in the end when third Oskar Eriksson tossed his water bottle after missing a shot and accidentally knocked the numbers off of the scoreboard.

“We had a really good situation going there and it was really close to make a perfect shot and just overcurling on him there so I don’t think he meant to do that. It was just flying a bit longer than he intended it to so it kind of looked bad,” Edin said. “But at the same time it kind of got me motivated. I could see he really wanted to win this game so I’m glad we could make those last few shot and pull off the win.”

Saskatoon’s Steve Laycock picked up a 6-4 win over reigning world champion Kevin Koe of Calgary. Both teams hold 2-1 records.

NOTES: The Humpty’s Champions Cup is the seventh and final event of the 2015-16 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season and runs through to Sunday at the Sherwood Park Arena Sports Centre. … The event is the second of two new tournaments added to the schedule this year along with the Tour Challenge, which kicked off the season in September. … Teams had to win an event over the course of the season in order to qualify for the Humpty’s Champions Cup.