Jones falls 8-3 to Ontario’s Rachel Homan

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This article was published 22/02/2020 (1671 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MOOSE JAW, Sask. — If there will ever be a record-breaking seventh Canadian title for Jennifer Jones, it’ll have to wait. For now, she’ll have to settle for her fourth Scotties Tournament of Hearts bronze, after falling 8-3 to Ontario’s Rachel Homan in the Sunday morning semifinal after nine ends.

That leaves Kerri Einarson the hope for a Manitoban to rise as the next Canadian champion, as she will now meet Homan in the 6 p.m. final. Einarson has been in fine form this week: she was sensational in a 1-vs-2 Page playoff victory over Jones and Team Wild Card on Saturday evening.

But for Jones, there was no such spark when she most needed.

From the start, the game was not in her hand. After a blanked first end, Homan put pressure on Jones, lying three with little to shoot for. With the hammer, Jones sent in a heavy draw that slid past all the Homan house clutter. Steal of three for Ontario, and after that, the outcome never really felt in doubt.

“You can’t give up a steal of three against a team like this and come back very often,” Jones said. “We really tried to put a few ends together, and just couldn’t kinda get anything going. Unfortunately, that steal of three we just missed too many shots that end. Even if I could have held them to one, it would have changed the game a little bit.”

In the fifth, Jones tried to carefully tap in a guard for a deuce, but her shooter wrecked on a high guard, forcing her to a single. In the eighth, a rustle of momentum, as third Kaitlyn Lawes threw a fierce double to open a chance for a big end; but Homan cut down the damage, and Jones’s chance at a deuce died on a light hammer draw.

Homan knew how critical it was to keep locking down. In last year’s Scotties final, she jumped out to a similar 5-1 lead over Chelsea Carey after the first five ends but wound up losing 8-6 in an extra. This time around, she wasn’t about to allow that same 5-1 first-half lead to slip away.

“We’ve seen big leads all week and teams fight back,” Homan said. “We made sure to keep the pedal down and had a really great game.”

The difference, really, came down to precision. Homan’s foursome was sharp as a unit, shooting a collective 90 per cent. Homan finished with a stellar 93, while Team Wild Card — which hadn’t always been sharp this week, but had been remarkably resilient — never seemed to find their stride: Jones finished at 71, the team 79.

Still, it’s a “way better” way to fall out of the Scotties than 2019, Jones laughed, back when the team wrestled with the ice and never made playoffs. That was the first time and now still the only time she ever missed the national playoffs.

“It always is terrible to lose, but at least we gave ourselves a chance this year,” Jones said.

This is not the end of the curling season for Jones, third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jocelyn Peterman and lead Dawn McEwen. There are still a couple of grand slams left to play, including the Champions Cup in April, and Jones said that overall she’s pleased with how the team’s season has evolved.

“We’ve worked on a lot of things, and I feel like they’re all coming together, and we’re trending in the right direction,” she said. “We’re having a ton of fun. So feeling really good about where we’re at. It would have been nice to play a little better in this game and last night, but all in all, can’t complain.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca