(by Fred Rinne). It was steal-and-steal alike at the Enmax Centrium in Draw 13 of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Red Deer Wednesday afternoon. Two of the hottest teams in the draw, Quebec’s Marie-France Larouche, coming off two wins Tuesday, took on home-province favourite Heather Nedohin, who not only won her two games Tuesday, she picked up another this morning against Saskatchewan’s Michelle Englot.
Quebec stole singles in one, two and three.
Marie-France Larouche tosses a rock during Draw 13 of the 2012 Scotties Tournament of Hearts. (Photo by Andrew Klaver)
Touché, said Nedohin, who stole two in four, one in five, and another in six and held a 4-3 lead heading into seven.
Larouche would blank seven, take one in eight and forced the Albertans to take one in nine leaving Quebec down one with hammer coming home.
“I don’t mind giving up steals of one when I’m looking at a chance for three or four, I’m going to be greedy every time,” said Nedohin, whose voice seemed less strained today.
As has been the case for the past few days, Larouche and her crew have had draw weight in the hip pocket and did again today, leaving Nedohin two options with her last shot facing to Quebec counters. It looked like there was a thin double which at worst might have sent the game to an extra end, but Nedohin says she agreed with third Beth Iskiw’s call that the shot wasn’t there. Instead she tried to draw around the junk to outcount at least one, but her rock moved over quickly and on top of rocks up front and the win was Quebec’s, 6-5.
Canada’s Amber Holland came off two sloppy losses in a row and unleashed curling wrath on Kim Dolan’s P.E. Islanders.
After three it was 6-0.
Dolan responded with a deuce in four to make it 6-2, but Holland turned around and put another three on the board and with the score 10-4, it was handshakes in eight.
“We were very happy with our execution today,” said Holland, who says her team is looking forward the night off to put their feet up.
“Feet are sore,” she laughs.
The team was without second Tammy Schneider once again, another victim of the bug.
Holland couldn’t put her finger on the reason for the turn around in execution from the past two games to this one.
“I don’t think there’s a short answer, there’s never a short answer. We were a lot more loose this game, we kind of knew we were at the end of our four-in-a- row ‘cause everything is getting a little tired. So you’re out their focusing on the rocks and hitting the broom the right way,” she said.
The win lifted Canada to 6-3. They are off tonight.
The loss dropped P.E.I. to 2-6. They are part of an east-coast clash tonight when they take on Heather Smith-Dacey’s Nova Scotians (3-5) [NS is currently leading 2-0 after 3].