OTTAWA — Brad Gushue of St. John’s moved into a tie for second with Mike McEwen by jumping on two costly misses by the Winnipeg team to score three in the second end and go on to an 8-3 win Wednesday evening at the Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings.
The result left both teams at 4-2, behind Kevin Koe and his 6-0 Calgary foursome.
Brad Gushue’s playoff hopes improved drastically with a big win on Wednesday night. (Photo, Curling Canada/Michael Burns)
Gushue, third Mark Nichols, second Brett Gallant, lead Geoff Walker, alternate Tom Sallows and coach Jules Owchar stole three in the second end, scored two in the fifth and stole a single in sixth in an impressive performance.
“It’s getting better for sure. Mark and Brett in particular have been throwing it much better the last couple games and it allows me to get a good read on the ice and make me feel comfortable,” Gushue said. “I felt each game we were progressing and now it’s turning into wins, which is nice.
“Tonight we got a couple of breaks on Mike’s misses, but I felt overall as a team we really put the pressure on them and didn’t give them a whole lot of opportunities once we got that lead.”
McEwen and his Winnipeg foursome struggled out of the gate and made a bad call on a rock in the second end and paid the price. Third B.J. Neufeld and McEwen had back-to-back misses that opened the door for Gushue to steal three.
“We mucked up on some rocks and that really cost us in the steal of three,” explained McEwen. “We put a straight one in B.J.’s hand that we should not have. Bad intel. You can literally say that was the game, that one end turned the game over.”
Trailing by three, McEwen started gambling and it cost him in the fifth when he had a chance to steal one but in an attempt to get two, he tried a wide double that didn’t work.
Rachel Homan’s Ottawa team pulled out a big come-from-behind victory on Wednesday night. (Photo, Curling Canada/Michael Burns)
“We dug a hole and if you don’t take chances against that team and you’re in a hole it’s not going to work out anyway,” he said. “We tried some high difficulty ones for two and it cost us.”
Rachel Homan of Ottawa (5-1), meanwhile, navigated her final stone through the narrowest of ports for a double takeout to score four in the 10th end to score a dramatic 10-7 win over Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge, Alta. (2-4). That moved the hometown favourites into a tie for second with Jennifer Jones of Winnipeg, behind unbeaten Chelsea Carey (5-0) of Calgary.
In the other evening games Krista McCarville of Thunder Bay, Ont., (3-2) rallied from a 4-1, fourth-end deficit and stole two in the 10th to nip Alli Flaxey of Toronto 8-7; and Reid Carruthers of Winnipeg (3-3) beat John Morris of Vernon, B.C., (1-4) 10-6.
The 2017 Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings continues with draws Thursday at 9 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. (all times EST).
Live scoring, standings and statistics for the 2017 Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings are available at www.curling.ca/scoreboard/
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