Canada’s Team Homan closing in on playoff berth at Pan Continental Championships

LACOMBE, Alta. — Canada’s Team Rachel Homan finds itself tantalizingly close to a semifinal berth at the 2024 Pan Continental Curling Championships.

A 9-2 win over New Zealand’s Team Chelsea Suddens (1-3) Tuesday afternoon at the Gary Moe Auto Group Sportsplex ran the Ottawa team’s win streak to four at the Pan Continentals — tied for top spot in the eight-team round robin with Japan’s Team Miyu Ueno and South Korea’s Team Eunji Gim.

The result all but officially clinched not only a berth into the four-team semifinals that are set for Friday at 9 a.m. (all times Mountain), but also a berth for Canada in the 2025 LGT World Women’s Curling Championship next March in Uijeongbu, South Korea.

“It was a good game for us,” said Team Canada vice-skip Tracy Fleury, who along with second Emma Miskew, lead Sarah Wilkes, alternate Rachel Brown and national coaches Viktor Kjell and Renee Sonnenberg round out Team Homan. “We got off to a good start, got a good handle on the ice and the rocks, and we were just trying to make good, precision shots.”

The Kiwis, coming off a dramatic extra-end win over Mexico after blowing an 8-1 lead through seven ends, couldn’t generate any offence against an air-tight Canadian team that also was coming off some Monday night drama, a narrow win over China that wasn’t decided until Homan’s final shot in the 10th end.

In its first three games here, Canada has put up a big number in the first end — three in its opener against the United States, five in Game 2 against Chinese Taipei, and three Monday night against China — and it happened again Tuesday with Homan making an open hit to score three.

That was followed by a pair of steals — two in the second end, three more in the fourth after a blanked third — when Suddens was light on last-rock draws.

New Zealand finally hit the scoreboard with a deuce in the fifth, but Canada got the concession from the Kiwis with one in the sixth.

“I mean, we’d like to be playing a little bit sharper, but we’re still learning the ice,” said Homan. “We’ve played all four sheets now, so we’re kind of compiling what we’ve learned and hopefully we’ll come out a little bit sharper tomorrow morning.”

Team Homan is back on the ice for a pair of games on Wednesday — a highly anticipated 9 a.m. showdown against  South Korea and at 7 p.m against Mexico’s Team Adriana Camarena (1-3).

The game against South Korea will be a rematch of two memorable games at the 2024 BKT Tires World Women’s Championship last March in Sydney, N.S. Team Gim handed Team Homan its only loss of the round robin in the final round-robin draw, and then 24 hours later, Team Homan scored three in the 10th end to beat the South Koreans 9-7 in the semifinal, en route to winning the world title a night later.

“That’s a big game,” said Homan. “It’ll be a battle, for sure. We’ll come out with our ‘A’ game, hopefully, and we’ll have to make a ton of shots against them. They’re a great team. They’ve been together for a long time, they’ve been on the Tour for a while, so they have lots of experience internationally. We know we’ll have to come out strong against them.”

The timing of the game, towards the end of the round-robin schedule, is ideal, suggested Fleury.

“There should be a little bit of intensity; I think that will be good to have a close one, and feel a little bit of nerves,” she said. “That’s always good heading into the playoffs. It’s always a really good game against them; exciting with lots of rocks in play. We like playing against them; it should be another good one. We’re looking forward to it.”

In other Tuesday afternoon games, South Korea defeated Team Cory Thiesse of the United States (1-3) 10-8; China’s Team Rui Wang (1-3) toppled Mexico 14-0; and Japan turned back Chinese Taipei’s Team Ko Yang (0-4) 12-1.

Canada’s Team Brad Gushue (4-0), meanwhile, is back on the ice on Tuesday night, taking on Japan’s Team Shinya Abe (3-1).

Live scoring, standings and statistics for the 2024 Pan Continental Curling Championships is available by CLICKING HERE.

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Ticket information for the 2024 Pan Continental Curling Championships is available by CLICKING HERE.

This story will be posted in French as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/category-all-posts-fr/?lang=fr