Veronica Smith rink wins P.E.I. Scotties Tournament of Hearts game with three curlers (Journal)

ALBERTON, P.E.I. – Veronica Smith’s Cornwall rink travelled to Alberton on Tuesday night to beat the storm.

They wanted to make sure they’d be ready for the opening draw of the 2019 P.E.I. Scotties Tournament of Hearts provincial women’s curling championship. They just didn’t count on having to beat the flu, too. The team arrived at the Western Community Curling Club on Wednesday morning just as a forecasted storm was settling in, but with just three curlers. Second stone Sabrina Smith stayed behind to recover.

That left third stone Jane DiCarlo and lead Whitney Jenkins to handle all of the sweeping. The skip was pleased with how her team responded in an 8-5 win over Lisa Jackson of the Charlottetown Curling Complex.

“When you put something like that into your mind first thing, first game, it’s hard, so we came up this morning (Wednesday) and said, ‘You know what, we’re playing with three,’ we’ve done this before in other tournaments and we were focused,” said Smith. “We knew what we had to do out there, and we just played shot by shot.”

Morrow wins

Silver Fox’s Melissa Morrow scored four with hammer in the eighth, bringing her game against Montague’s Tammy Dewar to an early conclusion – 10-4.

“We played very well,” said Morrow, the only member of her team with previous Scotties experience.

It was Morrow’s first time skipping at that level, although she skipped the same team in the provincial Travelers championship last year.

Amanda Colter, mate on the Sarah Fullerton rink, gives directions to sweepers Anita Casey, left, and Aleya Quilty while Kristie Rogers, mate on the Chloé McCloskey rink, and McCloskey look on. A deuce in the eighth and a stolen single in nine propelled Fullerton to a 6-4 win in the opening draw of the P.E.I. Scotties provincial women’s curling championship at the Western Community Curling Club in Alberton. The Men’s Tankard is also being played there. – Eric McCarthy

Fullerton victorious

In the other opening-draw game, Sarah Fullerton and her Charlottetown/Silver Fox rink scored its only deuce of the game in the eighth end to open up a 5-4 lead on the Chloé McCloskey rink from Charlottetown. They stole a point in the ninth, and ran McCloskey out of rocks in the 10th for a 6-4 victory.

“It was a well-played game. We had to be patient, but, overall, we were happy with the ice conditions,” Fullerton assessed their game.

Click to read the full story in the Journal Pioneer.

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