McCarville’s clutch draw beats Canada; N. Ontario remains unbeaten

GRANDE PRAIRIE, Alta. — Krista McCarville calmed her nerves and drew the draw with her final stone in the 10^th end to score two and beat Team Canada’s Jennifer Jones 8-7 at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts Sunday evening. “I feel like I’m so calm and cool during the game but when it comes to the last end and it’s such a nail biter I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’m getting nervous.’ ” McCarville said after improving her early record to 3-0. “I’m like, don’t be nervous, it’s the same thing, same game, same speed and everything is the same, just keep your nerves calm.” Jones, the heavy pre-tournament favourite, had little choice but to leave McCarville the draw for the win at Revolution Place. “I had a hard kind of runback but it was really tight to the guard and we weren’t sure it was there,” Jones said of what options she had with her last rock. “So we thought we would force her to make the draw.” In the other evening games, Kerri Einarson of Manitoba (Winnipeg) scored three in the fourth and stole two in the fifth en route to a 5-3 win over Jenn Hanna of Ontario (Ottawa), Suzanne Birt of P.E.I. (Charlottetown) got one in the 11^th to nip Sylvie Robichaud of New Brunswick (Moncton) 9-8 and Karla Thompson of B.C. (Kamloops) drew the button with last rock to get past previously unbeaten Marie-France Larouche of Quebec (St.Romuald) 7-6. The results left Alberta and Northern Ontario tied atop the standings at 3-0, followed by P.E.I., Quebec and Manitoba at 2-1, Ontario, New Brunswick, B.C., Team Canada, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia at 1-2 and Newfoundland-Labrador 0-3. McCarville, third Kendra Lilly, second Ashley Sippala, lead Sarah Potts, alternate Oye-Sem Won Briand and coach Lorraine Lang had some early struggles, giving up deuces to Team Canada in the second, fourth and sixth ends to trail 6-4. But they got singles back in the seventh and eight, forced Jones to take one in the ninth and then set the house in the 10^th to leave McCarville just having to draw inside the four foot for the win. “That’s what every skip wants, to throw a draw to win a game,” said McCarville, a four-time Ontario champion who’s representing Northern Ontario for the first time. “Especially in a big game like that, we wanted to keep it close and hope we had a chance at the end. “When you’re at the Scotties you need a bit of luck and luck seems to be on our side at the moment, hopefully it stays with us.” There are draws Monday at 1:30 and 6:30 p.m. MT. For ticket and other event information, visit https://www.curling.ca/2016scotties/tickets/ For the complete schedule, go to https://www.curling.ca/2016scotties/draw-schedule/ This story will be posted in French as soon as possible at https://www.curling.ca/2015canadacup/?lang=fr TSN (RDS2 in French), the exclusive television network for Curling Canada’s Season of Champions, will provide complete coverage of the 2016 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.