(by Fred Rinne) Team World at the World Financial Group Continental Cup, desperate for a victory following a devastating shellacking a year ago at St, Albert, AB., inched in front of the 2012 competition Thursday afternoon with a mixed doubles victory and a pair of draws.

The results left Team World with a 21-15 point lead heading in a later draw today involving men’s team games.

Tom Brewster at the 2012 WFG Continental Cup (Photo by: Michael Burns)

A World unit of two-time Olympic gold winner Anette Norberg and Sebastian Kraupp of Sweden doubled the count 8-4 over North Americans Reid Carruthers and Kim Schneider of Canada

Elsewhere, Shawn Rojeski of the U.S. and Marliese Kasner of Canada gave up an eight-end deuce to settle for a 9-9 draw with Thomas Ulsrud of Norway and Cissi Ostlund of Sweden, while Tom Brewster of Scotland and Qinghuang Yue of China also posted a last-end deuce to tie Wayne Middaugh of Canada and Nina Spatola of the U.S. by a 7-7 score.

Earlier Thursday, in women’s team games, Canada’s Stefanie Lawton hammered Norberg 11-3 while Bingyu Wang of China shaded Patti Lank of the U.S. 6-5 and Canada’s Amber Holland pulled the string on her last draw, yielding a 5-5 draw with Euro champion Eve Muirhead of Scotland.

Click for full story, photos and the media scrum from draw two at the CCA website.