(by Eric McCarthy) O’LEARY – A pressure-cooker seventh end helped propel the Jamie Newson rink from the Charlottetown Curling Complex to the Curl P.E.I. provincial mixed curling championship here Tuesday night.
Trailing Mark MacDonald’s Cornwall rink 3-2 after six ends, Newson and his rink of Vanessa Hamming, Andrew Robinson and Michelle MacIntyre played a patient seventh end, content to sit in front of the Cornwall rocks that lined up on the four-foot across the t-line. As the end progressed they advanced their rocks and moved the MacDonald stones further back. When the end was over Newson was holding a 5-3 lead.
“Andrew and I talked and said we’d go hard for this end and try to get a couple and the lead coming home,” the skip said of the seventh-end strategy. “That’s what we did, and it paid off.”
MacDonald tried a difficult in-off with his last stone in the final eighth end in an attempt to count two for the tie, but his rock was inside. He did manage to move Newson’s shot stone but only counted one, giving Newson a 5-4 victory and a trip to the Canadian mixed championship at the North Bay Granite Curling Club in November 2014.