With two losses yesterday at the Home Hardware Canada Cup, the day didn’t go Chelsea Carey’s way, and there were moments Thursday where it wasn’t either.
But Carey persevered in a 7-5 win over Alli Flaxey (1-2) at Affinity Place to move back to .500 with two wins and two losses, and give her a chance going into the final two days of the round robin.
In a field as tough as this one, it would be nearly impossible to be assured of a playoff spot with a 1-3 record.
“We had to win two today to give ourselves a chance,” said Carey. “With two losses already, we’re putting ourselves in a tough spot so to have any chance of making into the playoffs we knew we needed to win two today. They were both absolute battles and we had to grind right through them. It was a big bounce back for us.”
Carey said she and her team were missing just a little bit Wednesday but today they had a better feel on draw weight from the throwers' and sweepers' standpoints.
“It was just like we needed to shake a bit of rust off yesterday,” said Carey. “Today we were kind of back to our normal selves.”
With his 3-1 record, Brendan Bottcher has also put himself in a good position with a 9-8 win over Brad Gushue (2-2) in a rematch from March’s Tim Hortons Brier final.
Bottcher left himself with just a fairly open draw to the eight-foot in order to get the win.
“It’s the shot you want to throw and it’s nice when it’s not a draw to the pin,” Bottcher said. “A draw at the end is always good. We played a good game and we were tied coming home, which is really all you can ask for.”
Bottcher said he had some confidence in that situation because he threw those same two draws in the ninth end. Comfort with draw weight hasn’t been something that some skips have even after a few games here but Bottcher has had that confidence so far.
“There’s been a couple of patchy moments so I think that’s a little bit of inconsistency but otherwise for the most part we’ve been pretty good,” he said.
Even with the big match against Gushue out of the way, Bottcher isn’t letting his guard down.
“Every team out here, if you don’t play great, you’re going to lose pretty quick,” he said. “We’ve got to go out and play three more good games and hopefully if we can end up at 5-1 or 4-2 then that’ll put us somewhere in the playoffs and then we’ll go from there.”
The other matches in the Thursday afternoon draw included Brad Jacobs (4-0) defeating Matt Dunstone (0-3) 7-4, Kevin Koe (2-1) over John Epping (2-2) 8-6, and Laura Walker (1-3) over Darcy Robertson (1-2) 8-5.
The evening draw with feature Reid Carruthers against Koe, Dunstone vs Bottcher, Robertson vs Kerri Einartson, Rachel Homan (2-1) vs Jennifer Jones (2-1) and Flaxey vs Casey Schiedegger (2-1).
