VICTORIA, February 22, 2009 (CCA) — Quebec’s Marie-France Larouche is playing with confidence, and it’s producing early victories at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts Canadian women’s curling championship.
Larouche and her team from the Etchemin Curling Club (third Nancy Belanger, second Annie Lemay, lead Joelle Sabourin) won an early showdown in Draw 4 Sunday at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, beating P.E.I.’s Rebecca Jean MacPhee 9-4 in a battle of unbeatens.
With the win, Quebec improves to 3-0 while the Islanders drop to 2-1.
Larouche picked up a huge win earlier this year at the Capital One Grand Slam of Curling Sobey’s Slam, where she beat Stefanie Lawton in the championship game.
“It’s great confidence for us, because we know we are able to win, and we know we are able to beat great, great teams, the best teams in the world,” said Larouche, who won a Canadian junior championship in 1999. “We’re here now, and we’re focused on the good things, and we’ll try to play our best.”
They did against P.E.I., particularly in the fourth end when Larouche made a double-raise tapback through a port to score three and take a 5-2 lead; Quebec added steals of one in the fifth and sixth ends and cruised home with the win.
In other Draw 4 play, Team Canada’s Jennifer Jones improved to 2-0 with her second straight easy win to open the Hearts. Jones needed just six ends to pound out a 9-1 win over Nova Scotia’s Nancy McConnery. Canada opened the game with three in the first, and stole deuces in both the second and sixth ends en route to handing Nova Scotia its first loss.
“It’s never easy, not at this level,” said Team Canada second Jill Officer. “I mean, we’re just going out and trying to make every shot, trying to play our game and not worrying about everything else, and it seems to be working out for us.”
In a battle of winless teams, New Brunswick’s Andrea Kelly rallied from giving up deuces in the seventh and ninth ends to score the winning point in the 10th for an 8-7 triumph. New Brunswick improved to 1-2 while the Territories dropped to 0-3.
In the other game, Alberta’s Cheryl Bernard picked up a crucial steal of one in the eighth end, and played a flawless 10th to beat Barb Spencer of Manitoba 6-5. Alberta got to 1-1 with the victory, while Manitoba dropped to 0-2.
B.C.’s Marla Mallett (2-0), Ontario’s Krista McCarville (2-0), Saskatchewan’s Stefanie Lawton (0-2) and Newfoundland/Labrador’s Heather Strong (0-2) all had byes in Draw 4.
Play at the Scotties continues on Sunday with Draw 5 at 10:30 p.m. (all times Atlantic) on TSN.
On Monday, draws are scheduled for 12:30 a.m., 5 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Atlantic; all draws will be televised live by TSN, with the morning draw also available on TSN.ca. P.E.I. plays Saskatchewan in the early draw, and Nova Scotia at 5 pm Atlantic.