News Masters

TRURO, N.S. — Defending champion Val Sweeting of Edmonton is off to the Masters women’s final once again following a 5-3 victory over Kerri Einarson of East St. Paul, Man., in Sunday morning’s semifinals.

Sweeting, who captured her first Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling title last year in Selkirk, Man., will take on Ottawa’s Rachel Homan, who won 7-5 over Winnipeg’s Kristy McDonald.

Homan rolls into the final with an unblemished 6-0 overall record and looks to win her third Masters title in four years. 

“They’re going to start with hammer because they had a better record,” Sweeting said. “Just play well and keep our rocks in great spots as we did in this game and it should be a good game.” 

It was a textbook first half for Sweeting scoring deuces in the first and third ends while holding Einarson to singles in two and three to lead 4-2 at the break. Looking to add another two-pointer in five, Sweeting was unable to draw her last rock close enough to the pin and was limited to a single. Einarson, who won the Tour Challenge Tier 2 to earn a promotion, blanked the sixth end and settled for one in seven but ran out of rocks in eight. 

“It’s nice to open with a deuce but they had an unfortunate miss, it was a pretty open end,” Sweeting said. “It was nice to get comfortable. I thought we played really well as a team. We kept our rocks in pretty good spots. If the one shot was a little bit off then we made the next one so it just felt like a really good game out there.” 

Meanwhile, Homan scored four in the first to jump out to a 4-0 lead against Team McDonald, who played as a trio without their skip as she fell ill before the match. The teams alternated singles through two and three, Team McDonald took another point in four and stole one in five to narrow the gap 5-3. Homan got two in the sixth and Team McDonald matched with a pair in seven but ran out of rocks in eight. 

Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen will meet Jim Cotter of Vernon, B.C., in the men’s final. McEwen held on for an intense 5-4 victory over Tour Challenge Tier 1 winner Kevin Koe of Calgary while Cotter took down Saskatoon’s Steve Laycock 8-3. 

Koe opened with hammer but gave up a steal of one in the first. After Koe took two in the second to pull ahead, McEwen faced three counters with his last rock in the third end and made the open draw for a single to tie it 2-2. Koe reclaimed the lead with a single in four. 

After a blank in five, Koe attempted a tricky triple takeout in six that only eliminated one counter and McEwen capitalized to draw for three. McEwen nailed both of his skip stones in seven to avoid giving up multiple points and Koe’s only option was to blank. 

Koe had a chance to score two to tie it or three for the win with his final shot coming home, but he had to rush with just a couple of seconds left on the clock when he slid out of the hack and he was only able to get one. 

Meanwhile, Cotter settled for one in the first and stole points in the second and third ends to jump out 3-0. Laycock took two in the fourth but his final shot in the fifth was too thin and Cotter capitalized making the draw to score four. Laycock was forced to a single in six, Cotter added another point in seven and the teams shook hands. 

Cotter won the Tour Challenge Tier 2 event in September to earn a berth in the Masters.

The Masters is the first major and the second event of the 2015-16 Pinty’s GSOC season. The men’s final goes down later Sunday at 1 p.m. AT (watch on CBC) with the women’s final at 6 p.m. AT (watch on Sportsnet).