 VIRGINIA, Minn. — A playoff spot is secure for Canada’s Team Rachel Homan at the 2025 United States Steel Pan Continental Curling Championships. The Ottawa-based reigning two-time Canadian and World champions clinched a berth in the final four Friday afternoon at the Iron Trail Motors Event Center with a 9-1 win over Australia’s Team Helen Williams (2-4). With the win, Homan, vice-skip Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew, lead Sarah Wilkes, alternate Rachelle Brown, and coaches Renee Sonnenberg and Viktor Kjell advance to Saturday’s 8 p.m. (all times Eastern) semifinals, where berths in Sunday’s gold- and bronze-medal games will be decided. “Wonderful,” said Homan. “I mean, obviously coming off (winning the Grand Slam CO-OP Tour Challenge this past Sunday), we were just really looking to qualify here, learn as much as we can, and then, you know, get that little bit better that we need to play.” The Canadians will tune up for the semifinal with a final round-robin game Saturday at 10 a.m. against the host U.S. team skipped by Tabitha Peterson (5-1), which wrapped up its playoff spot on Thursday. It was a good bounce-back for Team Homan after a disappointing loss to China’s Team Rui Wang on Thursday a night — a game in which Canada didn’t trail until the final stone of the game when China scored a 10th-end deuce for a 7-6 victory. “We learned from that loss and came back and had to make some really precise draws and really precise runbacks, and we really nailed them,” said Homan. “We made a bunch of team shots today, so that just gives us confidence moving forward. I think everybody did some reflection, needed to do some tweaks moving forward into today, and I think we got there.” Against Australia, after blanking the first, Homan made a precise come-around tap to score a second end deuce, then stole one more int he third when Williams was just light on her last-rock draw. After holding Australia to a fourth-end single, Homan made a wonderful angle-raise takeout with her first stone of the fifth, and finished off a game-breaking five-ender with an open hit. Another stolen point in the sixth was enough to prompt the concession from the Australians, who have all but clinched their country’s first trip to the World Women’s Championship. Canada, as the host of the 2026 BKT World Women’s Curling Championship March 14-22 in Calgary, was already assured a berth, and the top five countries besides Canada at the Pan Continentals also will secure berths. Kjell liked what he saw from the Canadian team — particularly the way it responded to the disappointment of Thursday night. “It wasn't, obviously, our best game, but we still learned a lot last night and sitting and watching it, I thought we did our jobs well in communicating and figuring out the ice and the rocks,” he said. “I mean, today was a clinic — we didn't miss anything, so it was just good to see that and now we get some rest and then a two-game day tomorrow.” China (6-0), the U.S. and Canada will be joined by either Japan’s Team Satsuki Fujisawa (4-2) or South Korea’s Team Eunji Gim (3-3) in the semifinals, depending on the results of Saturday’s round-robin finale. Canada would finish second in the round robin and have last-rock advantage in the semifinal with a win over the U.S. and a South Korean win over Japan. In other Friday afternoon women’s games, China clinched first place in the round robin with a 7-6 extra-end win over the United States; Japan beat New Zealand’s Team Bridget Becker (0-6) 7-2; and South Korea was a 12-2 winner over Mexico’s Team Adriana Camarena (0-6). Later Friday, Canada’s Team Brad Jacobs (6-0) will hit the ice for a highly anticipated 8 p.m. showdown with Team John Shuster of the United States (6-0) in a game that will decide first place in the round robin and last-rock advantage for the playoffs. Scores, standings and full team lineups are available by CLICKING HERE. All games will be available on World Curling’s streaming platform, The Curling Channel. This story will be posted in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/fr/nouvelles-media/ |
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VIRGINIA, Minn. — It’s only October, and yet the electric atmosphere Friday night inside the Iron Trail Motors Event Center in Virginia, Minn.
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