SAULT STE. MARIE – Until Saturday, Krista McCarville hadn’t beaten Ottawa’s Rachel Homan in eight attempts.
The hurdle has finally been cleared.
The Thunder Bay skip made a brilliant double-takeout to score three points in the seventh end, breaking a 5-5 tie en route to an 8-5 win over Homan, the top-ranked team on the World Curling Tour, and advance to the semifinal at the Grand Slam of Curling’s Boost National in Sault Ste. Marie.
It helped erase an 8-2 loss to Homan in the tournament opener earlier this week, the only time McCarville, lead Sarah Potts, third Ashley Sippala and third Kendra Lilly have gone down to defeat this week.
“It feels really good. Our team’s been building on this weekend. We came out against Rachel in our first game and we struggled with the ice, we struggled with the weight and I think every game we’ve been building on that,” McCarville said in a post-game interview on Sportsnet.
“I feel really good.”
The key to finally getting the Homan monkey off her back was confidence.
“We came out here and we know we’ve been playing well. We said we’ve just got to play the same way and force her to make some tough shots. She’s good at making those shots, but we (just wanted to) put a little pressure on her and hopefully things would go our way.”
She found the confidence she was looking for early on.
McCarville scored two with the hammer in the first, then stole one in the second to open a quick 3-0 lead.
Homan was forced to take a single in the third, giving the hammer back to her Thunder Bay opponent, who promptly scored a pair in the fourth to hit the break with a commanding 5-1 lead.
It quickly evaporated.
Rather than peel away one of Homan’s stones with her final shot, McCarville instead left open a tiny window for a takeout that would score three.
Homan did not miss, and closed the gap to one, then stole a point in the sixth to even the match 5-5.
Up three in the eighth and final end, McCarville ran Homan out of rocks to complete the win.
She’ll take on Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni in Saturday night’s semifinal. Tirinzoni scored four in the sixth to put away defending Scotties Tournament of Hearts champion Chelsea Carey of Alberta, defeating her 9-2.
Switzerland’s Binia Feltscher will take on Winnipeg’s Kerri Einarson in the other semifinal. Feltscher knocked off Alberta’s Val Sweeting 8-2, while Einarson scored two in the eighth with the hammer to edge Russia’s Anna Sidorova 8-7.
