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Val Sweeting shoots a stone during the fifth round-robin draw of the 2017 Humpty's Champions Cup in Calgary. (Anil Mungal)

Sweeting, McEwen score big wins in Champions Cup

CALGARY — Edmonton’s Val Sweeting scored a six-ender to power past Ottawa’s Rachel Homan 8-3 in just five ends during Draw 5 Wednesday at the Humpty’s Champions Cup.

Both teams hold 1-1 round-robin records in the season-ending Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling tournament.

Sweeting, who threw 100 percent in the game, broke a 2-2 tie with an amazing triple takeout in the fourth frame to get her six spot.

“It was just a little unfortunate for her that it rolled there and it was pretty loaded,” Sweeting said. “I knew I just had to throw it good and it had a good chance. The whole end we stayed patient and kept our rocks in good spots.”

With the five-rock rule — where teams must wait until five rocks have been played before they can remove stones sitting in the free-guard zone — Sweeting wasn’t going to take any chances even with a six-point lead. The reigning Rogers Grand Slam Cup winner didn’t ease off of the pedal putting pressure on in the fifth to force Homan to make an angle bump for just another single that led to the early handshakes.

“We just tried to keep our shots as simple as possible and not do anything too crazy to blank it out or anything,” Sweeting said. “It’s hard to do that with the five-rock rule no matter what lead you have. I thought the girls played really well. It was really easy to figure the ice out. I thought it was a good team game after all, a good bounce back after yesterday.”

Sweeting fell to Winnipeg’s Kerri Einarson in an extra end during Tuesday night’s opening draw.

Sarah Wilkes of Team Kleibrink is subbing at second on Team Homan with Joanne Courtney away playing for Team Canada at the world mixed doubles championship.

Meanwhile, world champ Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L., climbed to a 2-0 record after needing an eighth-end comeback to beat Saskatoon’s Steve Laycock 7-5.

Gushue opened with the hammer and scored a three-ender right off the bat in the first. Laycock (1-1) got back into it with a deuce in the second and stole one in three to tie it when Gushue was only able to nudge Laycock’s counter as it stuck around for shot.

The teams alternated singles in four and five to keep pace knotted up 4-4. Gushue blanked the sixth but conceded a point — and a 5-4 lead — to Laycock in the seventh. Gushue sat three in the eighth and didn’t even need to throw his last to secure the dub.

“It was kind of a grind of a game,” Team Gushue second Brett Gallant said. “We battled the ice and our rocks a little bit and they made a lot of good shots. I think the degree of difficulty was pretty tough on a few of the shots, so it was back and forth.”

It was a good day at the office for Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen, who claimed his second victory with a 9-1 thrashing over Scotland’s Tom Brewster.

McEwen (2-0) stole singles in the second and third then swiped three in the fourth for a commanding 5-0 lead. Brewster (0-2) was held to just a single in five and shook hands when McEwen scored four more in the sixth.

McEwen topped Japan’s Yusuke Morozumi 6-4 in the afternoon.

“I thought we drew really well,” McEwen said. “Our first game, Morozumi played really well in the first half and we had to stay patient, but we’ve made a ton of draws in these first two games so that feels good to have a handle on the speed of the ice.”

McEwen praised the ice conditions as it kept him on his toes adapting to it while Brewster appeared to struggle.

“It’s a little softer, I thought, this evening so some guys got caught on throws a little bit. It’s just maybe a touch warmer in the building so Tom had a few that ran, maybe he didn’t throw it as bad as it looked at the end, and he paid for it too,” McEwen said. “You had to be a bit careful on your paths but overall speed was pretty decent and lots of curl.

“It’s not super fast but it’s decent. It might get faster as the week goes on, but otherwise, it’s pretty darn playable. You can make everything out there. It’s a surface where you’ve really got to be reading it all of the time though, which is good. Experienced skips will do really well on this ice.”

U.S. national champ John Shuster also went 2-0 Wednesday after doubling up on Greg Balsdon, of Kingston, Ont., 8-4. Balsdon, the Tour Challenge Tier 2 victor, fell to a 0-2 record.

Scotland’s Eve Muirhead bounced back on the day to beat Allison Flaxey of Caledon, Ont., 9-4. Muirhead lost her morning match to Alina Paetz of Switzerland as lead Lauren Gray was not feeling well and the team played as just a trio.

Muirhead and Flaxey both hold 1-1 records.

Round-robin action continues through to Friday evening at WinSport Arena with the top eight men’s and women’s teams qualifying for the weekend playoffs. TV coverage begins Thursday at 2:30 p.m. ET on Sportsnet One.