CurlingZone: Carey, Einarson, Tirinzoni book final playoff spots

Silvana Tirinzoni (photo: Anil Mungal/GSOC), Chelsea Carey, and Kerri Einarson both lead their squads to tiebreaker victories Saturday morning to secure their playoff berths at the Co-Op Canadian Open.

By Meredith McCullum

With three nail biter tie breakers complete, the women's quarterfinals are now set at the second Grand Slam event of the season in Nisku, Alberta.

Chelsea Carey, backed by Karlee Burgess, Lauren Lenentine and spare Lindsey Burgess, edged out team Lawes 4-3 in the first women's tiebreaker. Carey started the game with hammer, blanking the first end and making a pressure draw against three yellow counters in the second to get her team on the board. Carey followed this up with a steal in the third to go up 2-0 early.

In the fourth end Selena Njegovan, who has taken over skipping duties while Kaitlyn Lawes has a baby, made an open hit for 2 to tie the game up after halfway through.

The second half of the game was back and forth with the teams trading singles in the fifth and sixth ends and a blank in the seventh to make the score 3-3 coming home. On her final shot, Njegovan attempted a double and was only able to get one red stone out of the four foot, giving Carey the 4-3 win and a playoff berth.

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WATCH Tiebreaker 1: Carey vs Lawes

Kerri Einarson and her team from Gimli, Manitoba faced Selena Sturmay of Edmonton Alberta in another tight battle. Sturmay started out with hammer and capitalized with an early deuce to get her team on the board. In the second, however, a miss on Sturmay's last would give Einarson an open draw to the four foot to score a huge four points and take a 4-2 lead.

The rest of the game was back and forth with the teams trading singles and deuces to make it a 6-6 tie going into the eighth end and Einarson - who is backed by Val Sweeting, Krysten Karwacki and spare for the week Joanne Courtney - had the hammer. On her last shot, Einarson faced two rocks on the button and was able to double them off to score two and win the game 8-6, earning her spot in the quarterfinals.

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WATCH Tiebreaker 2: Einarson vs Sturmay

Silvana Tirinzoni and her team from Aarau, Switzerland booked the final playoff spot, winning their tiebreaker against Sayaka Yoshimura of Sapporo Japan. Tirinzoni and teammates Alina Patz, Carole Howald and Selina Witschonke got off to an early 2-0 lead with a single and then a steal in the first two ends. Yoshimura then did the same back, tying the game 2-2 after 4 ends of play.

Tirinzoni scored a deuce in the sixth to take back the lead and in the seventh, Yoshimura attempted a tap back to score one and close the gap but came up light, giving up a steal of two instead. The teams shook hands and Tirinzoni took the 6-2 victory to advance to the quarterfinals.

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WATCH Tiebreaker 3: Tirinzoni vs Yoshimura

The Quarterfinals will be played Saturday at 12pm MT. Einarson (8) will face Homan (1), Constantini (2) will face Tirinzoni (7), Kim (3) will face Carey (6) and Fujisawa (4) will face Ha (5). There will be live around-the-rings coverage of the games on Sportsnet One and all games will be streamed on HomeTeamLive app.

Matt Dunstone won the only tiebreaker on the mens side as he edged out Mike McEwen's squad 7-5. The mens quarterfinals will be played later today at 4pm MT with Mouat (1) vs Dunstone (8), Gushue (2) vs Edin (7), Jacobs (3) vs Schwaller (6) and Retornaz (4) vs Whyte (5).

All results can be found at curlingzone.com and game streams are linked to the CurlingZone Scoreboard and accessed by clicking the red play button.

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