Koltun falls to Manitoba’s Carey in Draw 10 action

They may both be first-time Scotties skips, but Manitoba’s Chelsea Carey showed all the finesse of a seasoned veteran in defeating Sarah Koltun and her team from the Yukon/Northwest Territories 10-4 on Tuesday night at Maurice-Richard Arena. With a 6-1 lead at the break, Carey controlled the play and took advantage of some strategy miscues by her opponents to put the game away in eight ends. For the youngsters from the north, playing at the Scotties – just a few weeks after representing the Yukon at the Canadian junior curling championships in Liverpool, N.S. – has been an exciting learning experience. “Of course we wanted to win some games and do well,” said Chelsea Duncan, who is third on the team. “But mostly a lot of it is about gaining experience and learning because this is just the beginning for us.” In other games on Tuesday evening, Saskatchewan’s Stefanie Lawton joined Carey with a 5-1 record after a decisive 7-3 win over Prince Edward Island’s Kim Dolan, who saw her two-game winning streak snapped. New Brunswick’s Andrea Crawford notched her second win of the day, a 7-4 victory over Allison Flaxey of Ontario. The reigning Scotties champions, Rachel Homan and her Ottawa Curling Club team of Emma Miskew, Alison Kreviazuk, Lisa Weagle, alternate Stephanie LeDrew and coach Earle Morris, has been cruising through the field. Homan leads all skips with a 92 per cent shooting average, and makes winning look easy. In the evening draw against Nova Scotia’s Heather Smith, she kept that trend going. The team from the Mayflower in Halifax couldn’t find anywhere to hide and gave up five points on the way to a 10-3 Team Canada win. “We’ve practiced playing in tight games all year,” said Team Canada’s Miskew about the challenge of staying focused when the score becomes lopsided. “We keep playing how we’re playing and when we run into a tight game we don’t have to change anything. We know the draw weight will hold up, we know the ice is great, so it’s just believing in ourselves and the ice.” “We know we just got past 50 per cent of our games in the round robin so we still have a lot of games ahead of us,” she said. “We still have to win a few more, and we’re playing some good teams, so we just have to keep it rolling.” The Scotties continues with draws on Wednesday at 9 a.m, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. (all times EST). TSN/RDS2, the official broadcaster of the CCA’s Season of Champions, will provide extensive coverage of the 2014 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, with 66 hours of live broadcasts scheduled. The winner of the 2014 Scotties Tournament of Hearts will represent Canada at the Ford World Women’s Curling Championship, presented by Booster Juice, March 15 to 23 in Saint John, N.B. The 2014 Scotties marks the 33rd year of Kruger Products Limited’s sponsorship of the Canadian women’s championship. For ticket information, go to: www.curling.ca/2014scotties-en/tickets/ For schedule information, go to: www.curling.ca/2014scotties-en/draw-schedule/