News Masters

SELKIRK, Man. — Edmonton’s Val Sweeting capped a week of adversity claiming her first career Grand Slam of Curling title defeating Sweden’s Margaretha Sigfridsson 5-4 in the Masters women’s final Sunday.

Third Andrea Crawford parted ways with the team to return to New Brunswick on the eve of the tournament. Sweeting, second Dana Ferguson and lead Rachel Brown — who dubbed themselves the “tripod” — drafted Winnipeg’s Cathy Overton-Clapham as a last-minute super spare and charged through the Masters finishing with an overall 6-1 record.

Sweeting, who earned $24,500 CAD, held the hammer coming home all square in the championship game. With just 15 seconds left on the clock and facing three counters, Sweeting called a timeout to plan out her high-pressure final shot and threw perfect weight to tap out Sigfridsson’s shot stone and score the winning single.

“I knew what I had to do on my first so I didn’t want to use it then and wanted to use (the timeout) on my last one,” Sweeting said. “Yesterday we almost ran out of time (in the semifinals) and didn’t have any timeouts so it’s just one thing we’ll have to watch moving forward. It was just a little tight.

“I felt the five-rock rule this week, I found it kind of made you think a little bit differently and maybe that was why we burnt a little bit more time because we were never that tight last year ever. It was an exciting week.”

Ferguson leaped on the ice as Sweeting raised her brush in celebration.

“I’m still shaking,” Ferguson said. “I didn’t realize I reacted as I did. I was pretty calm throughout the whole thing and the end was a little emotional. I kind of got my adrenaline going. It was just a really exciting feeling.”

Sweeting topped Alina Paetz of Switzerland 5-2 in the quarterfinals and ensured a new team name would be added to the Masters trophy eliminating double defending champion Rachel Homan of Ottawa 4-3 in an extra end during the semifinals.

“With the three of us, I’m just really proud of what we’ve done this week,” Ferguson said. “Cathy was amazing but it’s still a brand-new team, our first game together at the Masters. We just did everything we could. We supported each other through it all and I think that was key. We tried to give each other what we needed through the whole thing and just kept that momentum going. The positivity kept working for us.”

Sweeting added: “I didn’t feel like I was at my best yesterday but they were there for me. If anything it will bring us closer and give us that confidence moving forward once we do have more of a permanent fourth (member). We can be even stronger.”

The teams opened the scoring alternating singles in the first and second, Sigfridsson stole one in the third and Sweeting scored a deuce in the fourth to pull ahead. Sweeting stole one in the sixth to make it 4-2 when Team Sigfridsson’s fourth Maria Prytz clipped one of her team’s rocks while entering the 12-foot circle and continued to sail through the house. Prytz recovered and nailed a raise takeout to score a pair in the seventh to tie it up before the thrilling finale.

Sigfridsson, who skips while throwing lead stones, is supported by Prytz, third Christina Bertrup and second Maria Wennerstroem and collected $14,000 CAD.

Team Sigfridsson had a back-and-forth round robin — finishing with a 2-2 record — and needed a 6-4 win over Russia’s Anna Sidorova in the tiebreakers to qualify. The team continued to pick up steam beating previously undefeated No. 1 seed Binia Feltscher of Switzerland 8-4 in the quarterfinals and edging Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones 5-4.

The Masters concludes with the men’s final between Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen and Brad Gushue of St. John’s at 3 p.m. ET / Noon PT on Sportsnet.