Silvernagle slides by Jones at Players’ Championship
TORONTO — Team Robyn Silvernagle scored a 7-4 victory over Team Jennifer Jones during the fifth round-robin draw of the Players’ Championship Wednesday night at Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre.
Silvernagle, from North Battleford, Sask., improved to a 2-0 record in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling major tournament.
“It feels really good,” skip Robyn Silvernagle said. “We just came out to play and make some shots. Playing against these teams a couple of times this year, we knew we could beat them but knew we’d have to play well and we did play well today.”
The 2019 Scotties Tournament of Hearts bronze medallist Silvernagle opened with the hammer, converted for a deuce in the first and stretched it to a 4-0 lead with back-to-back single steals in two and three. Jones, who has won a record six Players’ Championship women’s titles, narrowed the gap down to one in the fourth with a hit to count three.
After singles back and forth in five and six, Silvernagle added another in seven and tacked on one more stolen point in eight.
“Welcome to the five-rock rule. It’s never over, right?” Silvernagle said. “We knew we had to battle and had to keep going. The game isn’t over and a team like Jones, they like to have rocks in play. We had to play our best, score when we had hammer and we did that.”
Jones, from Winnipeg, is now even at 1-1 following a 7-2 win over Team Elena Stern of Switzerland during the morning draw.
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Calgary’s Team Chelsea Carey also went 1-1 on the day but in the opposite direction. Carey fell 8-3 to provincial rival Team Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge earlier and bounced back by beating Japan’s Team Sayaka Yoshimura 4-3 in the evening.
Team Scheidegger (2-0) continued their big day by snapping a tie with a huge five count in the seventh to thump Japan’s Team Satsuki Fujisawa 9-4.
Both Yoshimura and Fujisawa fell to 0-2 records.
In men’s play, Calgary’s Team Kevin Koe scored a single in the eighth end to hold off Winnipeg’s Team Reid Carruthers 7-6 while Team Glenn Howard of Penetanguishene, Ont., edged Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat 7-6 in an extra end.
Koe and Carruthers are both even with 1-1 records, Howard climbed to 2-0 while Mouat dropped to 0-2.
Round-robin action resumes Thursday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Teams are split into two pools for round-robin play with the best eight overall qualifying for the weekend playoffs.
Broadcast coverage begins Thursday at Noon ET on Sportsnet and streaming online at Sportsnet NOW (Canada) and Yare (international).
Notes: The Players’ Championship is the sixth event and fourth major of the 2018-19 Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling tour featuring 12 of the top men’s teams and 12 of the top women’s teams in the world. … A combined purse of $300,000 is up for grabs with the winning teams cashing in $30,000 each. … Also on the line is the Pinty’s Cup, which is awarded to the season men’s and women’s champions and includes a $75,000 bonus for the winners.
