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Southeast's Val Sweeting enjoying 5-1 start with Einarson

Southeast product Val Sweeting has had a great week so far with skip Kerri Einarson and the team has put themselves in a great position to make it to the final at the Home Hardware Canada Cup.
Sweeting
Val Sweeting delivers a rock Friday afternoon against Laura Walker at the Home Hardware Canada Cup

Southeast product Val Sweeting has had a great week so far with skip Kerri Einarson and the team has put themselves in a great position to make it to the final at the Home Hardware Canada Cup.

Sweeting, Einarson’s third, is now on a 5-1 team with one game left to go in the round robin after an 8-5 win over Laura Walker (1-4).

“Things have been really going well,” said Sweeting, who was born in Redvers and grew up in Maryfield. “That was a little bit sloppy but that’s to be expected. We had three (games) in a row twice with pretty much no break but we’re battling and just trying to be patient and take our chances, and make up if we kind of make a half shot but the week’s been going well.”

It’s one thing to have a skip like Einarson, last year’s finalist in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, but it’s another to have an entire team with skipping experience like they’ve got.

“I think our shot selection is right there and Kerri’s calling a great game and she doesn’t need our help,” said Sweeting. “But if she does we’re there. Things are really coming together this week but there’s lots left. There’s one more round robin game and anything can happen. We just want to put ourselves in a position to make playoffs and we’ll take it from there.”

The five wins should be enough to carry them into a tiebreaker at the very least but there are still a few permutations that could make that a long process.

“A win tomorrow might put us into the final, but we’re not thinking about that,” said Sweeting. “We just want to keep getting better with every game. We’re really happy with what we’ve done here so far. We just want to keep it going.”

Rachel Homan (4-2) won her second in a row with a dominant 9-2 win over Chelsea Carey (2-3).  

“It was a really well played game by our team and they (Carey) just missed a couple, just an inch here or there that made it look lopsided,” said Homan.

In the seventh end, Homan had the hammer and five stones in the rings facing Carey’s rock, which was shot. Had she hit and stayed around she would have counted six in the end but her shooter rolled out and she scored a mere five in the end to take the 9-2 win.

Homan has been a crowd favourite with many of the younger fans over the course of the week, with kids chanting her name.

“They had some great chants and everything and it was awesome,” Homan said. “There’s been some great energy in the building and we love to have them out."

In Friday afternoon’s other matches, Brad Jacobs (5-0) won 8-6 after a difficult double takeout in the 10th end over John Epping (2-3), Brad Gushue (3-2) won 8-4 over Reid Carruthers (0-6) and Jennifer Jones (5-1) defeated Casey Scheidegger 9-6 (3-3).

The Friday evening draw – the second last of the round robin – will have Walker against Carey, Alli Flaxey against Darcy Robertson (1-4), Epping against Matt Dunstone (1-4), Kevin Koe (4-1) against Gushue and Brad Jacobs (5-0) against Brendan Bottcher (3-2).