VICTORIA, February 26, 2009 (CCA) — Prince Edward Island’s Rebecca Jean MacPhee added to Team Canada’s woes on Thursday morning at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
MacPhee’s Charlottetown quartet — with sister Robyn at third (and throwing last rock), second Shelley Muzika and lead Tammi Lowther) — took an extra end to beat Jennifer Jones’s defending champs from Winnipeg 8-7 in Draw 15 play at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
The win, combined with the other Draw 15 results, left both teams part of a logjam of six teams tied with four losses behind the leading duo of Marla Mallett of B.C. (8-1) and Stefanie Lawton of Saskatchewan (6-3), who both had byes for the morning draw.
The Islanders held their breath as Jones barely missed a runback double takeout to score a winning pair in the 10th end, and then Robyn MacPhee made an open takeout for the win in the 11th.
“Well, we knew we had to come in and win both games today, and we’re off to the start we need,” said Rebecca Jean MacPhee, who completes round-robin play this afternoon against B.C. “it was a good, it was back and forth. We had a steal, they had a steal, and we just played well. We came out and we were firing the way we wanted to.”
In other morning play, Alberta’s Cheryl Bernard improved to 6-4 with a come-from-behind win over Kerry Galusha of the Northwest Territories/Yukon. The Territories took a 3-0 lead early, and were up 3-1 when Galusha had an angle-takeout to score four in the fourth, but her rock overcurled and she had to settle for one. Alberta fought back to tie it with three in the fifth, and stole one in the seventh and two more in the eighth and never looked back. The loss dropped the Territories to 3-7.
Quebec’s Marie-France Larouche snapped a two-game losing streak by thumping Barb Spencer of Manitoba 9-4. Quebec, 6-4, scored three in both the third and ninth end to drop Manitoba’s record to 2-8.
In the other morning game, New Brunswick’s Andrea Kelly stole two in the fifth end, one more in the sixth, and won the game with a 10th-end deuce for a 9-8 victory over Nancy McConnery of Nova Scotia. New Brunswick moved to 4-6; Nova Scotia dipped to 1-9.
Round-robin play at the Scotties concludes later Thursday with draws at 5 p.m. (all times Atlantic) and 10:30 p.m. on TSN. As well, archived footage from earlier draws is available from TSN.ca.
The top four teams following the conclusion of round-robin play on Thursday night will make the Page playoffs. The first- and second-place teams will play either Friday or Saturday, with the winner going into Sunday’s 9 p.m. championship game on TSN.
The third- and fourth-place teams will play, either Friday or Saturday for a berth in Saturday’s 8 p.m. semifinal on TSN against the loser of the Page one-two game.