Back on track

Krista McCarville's rink has not enjoyed its usual brand of success this weekend, but the newly constructed foursome is still alive at the Courtesy Freight Northern Ontario Superspiel.

McCarville rebounded in the 3-4 qualifier, knocking of Thunder Bay's Megan St. Amand 8-1 to advance to Sunday's quarterfinal. The Fort William Curling club foursome needed just five ends to dispatch its opponent, scoring three in the first and three more in the fourth before stealing a deuce in the fifth to put it away.

The veteran skip earned a rematch with Wisconsin's Rebecca Hamilton, a team she came up a few feet short of beating earlier on Saturday in her final round-robin match.

McCarville said it's just one of those weekends.

The prohibitive favourite entering the event, she missed an open draw for the win in the extra end to lose her second game in three outings in the afternoon draw, falling 5-4 to Hamilton in an extra end.

"It was a battle," said a disappointed McCarville, explaining her miscue. "I just pulled the string."

The foursome, which includes lead Sarah Lang, newcomer Liz Kingston at second and third Ashley Miharija, just couldn't get it going, said McCarville, a four-time Ontario champion who curls out of the Fort William Curling Club.

"I don't know," she said when asked why the squad is struggling at the Port Arthur Curling Club event, part of the newly formed Great Lakes Curling Tour.

"We're struggling with the ice a little bit. It's tricky ice. I feel it's not super consistent throughout the sheet and every sheet is a little bit different and we're not picking up on it," McCarville said.

Hamilton picked up a point with the hammer in the first, then forced McCarville to bump her stone off the button to knot the score in the second.

McCarville stole one in three after a measurement, then appeared to be setting up for a big end in the fifth, tied 2-2, but a misplayed guard by Miharija opened the door for Hamilton to peel away both the guard and one of two McCarville stones in the four-foot.

The Thunder Bay rink picked up one, which Hamilton took back in the sixth. The two teams traded points in the seventh and eighth to send it to an extra end.

"She played great that game. We all played great," said Hamilton, who represented her country at the 2011 World Junior Curling Championships. "It just came down to the last shot, I guess.

"We're in our groove and we're just ready to curl, I guess. We're all playing well and looking forward to it."

She would later lose to Thunder Bay's Liane Fossum, the only unbeaten rink remaining, in the first of two 1-2 qualifiers, losing 9-3.

Thunder Bay's Marlo Dahl finished the round-robin portion of the Superspiel at 2-1 and agreed with McCarville that the ice is a little tricky at times, but it's just a matter of figuring it out early enough and making the best of a bad situation.

"We're just going to keep going, keep pushing forward. We have a very solid team, so hoepfully we'll be successful," Dahl said.

Dahl, who beat Tirzah Keffer 7-1 in the other 1-2 qualifier, earned a direct berth into Sunday's semifinal, where she awaits the winner of the McCarville-Hamilton match.

In other qualifying round action, Aileen Sormunen used a five-ender in the second to wrap up her 3-4 qualifier with Thunder Bay's Karlee Jones, winning 9-1. Jones was eliminated from the competition with the loss, while Sormunen's hopes rely on beating Keffer in the other quarterfinal.

On the men's side Thunder Bay's Trevor Bonot and Minnesota's Tyler George earned the first two berths in the eight-team playoff. Bonot defeated Wisconsin's John Benton 5-4 in the A-side qualifier, while George knocked off Thunder Bay's Colin Koivula 6-3. On Sunday Scharf beat Benton 7-2 to earn a B-side berth and Wark beat Koivula to earn the other. Benton and Koivula drop to C-side.

Fighting for their playoff lives on Sunday, with no losses to give in the triple-knockout format, were 10 rinks. In the 9 a.m. draw Bryan Burgess beat Craig Brown, Trevor Clifford beat John Shuster 9-5, Ben Mikkelsen knocked off Pete Fenson 5-2 and Mike Pozihun edged Jacques Carr 6-4. In the C-side qualifiers, Thunder Bay's Jeff Currie takes on Mikkelsen, Brian Adams Jr. has a  date with Clifford, Pozihun plays Koivula and Benton plays Bryan Burgess.

Notes: Former two-time Brier champion Ed Lukowich is filling in for Pete Fenson, who remained in Minnesota on Friday and Saturday to watch his son play football. Fenson's rink, who Lukowich coaches, finished fourth at the 2010 world championships.