 KAMLOOPS - Gimli's Kerri Einarson won 10-4 over Winnipeg's Jennifer Jones in the championship final of the 2023 Scotties Tournament of Hearts on Sunday evening. By: Dylan Chenier Einarson, with Val Sweeting at third, Shannon Birchard at second and Briane Harris at lead, finished off the win with a hit for five. In the ninth end, Team Canada finally broke open the dam, leaving Jones a hail mary on her last, but left open the shot to clinch the win. The final score was 10-4 after Jones conceded at the end of the ninth end. With the victory, Team Einarson has now won four consecutive Scotties titles, becoming the first rink to do so since Colleen Jones and her team from Nova Scotia won four straight championships between 2001 and 2004. With four total wins to her name, Eianrson moves into a tie for third place on the all-time wins list, alongside Saskatchewn's Vera Pezer. Meanwhile, Team Canada's second Shannon Birchard took home her fifth title in as many appearances, after winning her first gold medal in 2018 as a member of Team Jones. "It means so much... it's unbelievable. To be up there with Colleen Jones, that's pretty impressive, [to have] four titles in a row, that's amazing," Einarson said to TSN's Bryan Mudryk after the game. "We had to work extremely hard to win this. I'm so extremely proud of my teammates." As seemed usual on the weekend, Einarson started slow, following a similar pattern to the afternoon semifinal where draw weight was the culprit. In the second end, Einarson's last rock draw against two Jones points just stopped in time, curious if another steal might cause Canada to fall behind. A steal in the fifth end, where Jones needed to draw the eight-foot against two Team Canada counters, dropped Jones behind for good in the game. In the sixth end, Jones rolled into the back eight-foot underneath cover giving Einarson the freeze out to Jones' possible 3. Team Manitoba ended up scoring a single, missing out on the chance to get two points back. In the sixth end, Einarson froze out another Jones stone to force another single, with Jones coming back in the seventh end with a double taketout to force Einarson into a hit against three. In the eighth end, a runback double attempt by Val Sweeting chipped a Manitoba rock in for shot stone, though with their own stone on the top four-foot, the house became difficult to maneuver for Jones. The Manitoba skip was again forced to a single, leading to the risk-taking in the ninth. While both teams were rather evenly matched throughout Sunday's contest, the biggest difference between the two rinks came at the skip position, with Jones curling just 69% to Einarson's 89%. The best performances among the two squads came at the lead position, with Lauren Lenintine and Brianne Harris both curling 97% on 18 shots. For Jennifer Jones, Sunday's loss marks the decorated skip's fourth Scotties silver medal. It was, however, the first podium finish for the rest of Jones' teammates, as the young curlers played in their third Tournament of Hearts, impressing many along the way. Meanwhile, for Einarson, the victory completes the comeback and seals off another fantastic performance following their lone hiccup of the week against Jones in the Page qualifying game. The much-lauded format by many has now created a battle test team to head off to the World Championships in Sandviken, Sweden, from March 18-26. In Sweden, Team Einarson will be looking to secure Canada its first gold medal since Jennifer Jones won the event in 2018 in North Bay. After COVID cancelled Einarson's first trip to Worlds in 2020, the rink finished in sixth place at the 2021 event before taking home the bronze medal last year in Prince George. Rounding out the podium in Kamloops was Krista McCarville and Team Northern Ontario, who took home the bronze medal after falling to Team Canada in the semifinal on Sunday afternoon. The result marks McCarville's third podium finish at the Scotties, after finishing as runner-up in 2016 and 2022. |
A five at the opening end of their first-ever match together in a major international competition sent Katie McMillan and Angus Bryce on their way to a dominant victory over the USA at the ACE & Company World Mixed Doubles Championships in Geneva.
