 VIRGINIA, Minn. — Team Rachel Homan will play for gold wearing the Maple Leaf on Sunday at the 2025 United States Steel Pan Continental Curling Championships. Suffice it to say, the team hopes it’s not the last time this season it will play in an international final representing Canada, so it will gladly take advantage of a dress rehearsal on Sunday at the Iron Trail Motors Event Center in Virginia, Minn., when Team Canada plays China’s Team Rui Wang at 5:30 p.m. (all times Eastern) in the final edition of the Pan Continental Championships. Ottawa’s Homan, vice-skip Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew, lead Sarah Wilkes, alternate Rachelle Brown, and coaches Renee Sonnenberg and Viktor Kjell clinched a berth in the gold-medal game Saturday night, beating Team Tabitha Peterson of the United States 8-3 in the semifinal. It’ll be a second straight Sunday final for Team Homan, which won its record 19th Grand Slam championship last weekend in Nisku, Alta. “It's not easy going from one tournament right to the next, but they gave us the opportunity to put on the Maple Leaf on and play 10-end games, and it’s a great opportunity to be in the final for Canada,” said Homan. “We're always going to jump at that opportunity and never take that for granted. We're excited to be here, excited to be representing Canada, and obviously winning that game is just huge. It's just so exciting. We always want Canada in that final battle.” Team Canada got steadily better as the evening proceeded. After a blanked first end, Miskew’s early hit-and-roll set up the second end perfectly, and Homan finished it off with a draw to the rings for two. An end later, Homan snuffed out a U.S. threat with a terrific double runback takeout that eventually forced the U.S. to take a single Canada made it 3-1 when Homan hit for a single in the fourth, needing a hard sweep from Miskew to hold the line, and stretched it to 4-1 an end later on a bad miss from Peterson, who had a hit for three but was narrow with her delivery and ended up pushing a Canadian stone into scoring position for the steal. It was a terrific night for Miskew, who finished the game scored at xx per cent, and made a double runback takeout in the eighth that cleared off a pair of U.S. centre guards as well as a dangerous U.S. stone at the top of the four-foot. That set the stage for Homan’s last-rock double takeout for three that prompted a concession from the U.S. team. “She (Miskew) was phenomenal,” said Homan. “She stepped up her game, and that's a difference-maker in big games like that.” China, 7-0 in the round robin, defeated South Korea’s Team Eunji Gim 6-5 in an extra end in the other semifinal. The Chinese scored two in the 10th end for a 7-6 win over Canada in their round-robin game on Thursday night. “Playing in the semifinal is always tough, so it’s almost freeing to make the final, and know that you’ll be playing for a medal,” said Miskew. “We’ve been learning all week and I think we’re in a good place for the final.” The U.S. will play South Korea in the bronze-medal game at 9:30 a.m. It could be a double golden day for Canada as the men’s final will feature Calgary’s Team Brad Jacobs taking on Team John Shuster of the United States at 1:30 p.m. Earlier Sunday, Jacobs, vice-skip Marc Kennedy, second Brett Gallant, lead Ben Hebert, alternate Tyler Tardi, team coach Paul Webster and national coach Jeff Stoughton shaded China’s Team Xiaoming Xu 5-4 in the men’s semifinals. 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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Calgary's Brad Jacobs (Photo: Curling Canada/Andrew Klaver) defeats Winnipeg's Matt Dunstone 6-5, winning 2 games to 0 in a best-of-three final at the Montana's Canadian Olympic Curling Trials in Halifax, N.
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