Canada red hot at Ford World Women’s

Canada’s Jennifer Jones and her Winnipeg team tossed a 96-per-cent performance at the United States on Tuesday night at the Ford World women’s curling championship, presented by Monsanto. The Winnipeg lineup was led by Jill Officer, who was scored at 100 per cent on 20 second stones. “I did?” reacted an astounded Officer. “Yikes! It’s great that we can be sharp like that. Mind you, there were a lot of open ends so that helps. It’s important to get stronger as the week goes on and I’m glad we had a good team day today.” The team, in fact, scored an aggregate 96 per cent with lead Dawn Askin at 98, third Cathy Overton-Clapham at 95 and skip Jones at 93, with one complete miss. “I thought it was our best team game,” said Jones of the 6-4 decision. “I’m just happy, because Tuesday never has been our best day at these events. It’s great to be 7-and-0 but we could still be 7-and-4 so we have to keep chipping away.” U.S. skip Erika Brown couldn’t have been blamed for feeling like she was hit by a truck. Exhibiting a fighting spirit, the Yankee skipper stole a fifth-end go-ahead point when Jones flashed a hit that would have netted Canada four points and a 7-3 lead. Instead, it was 4-3 for the U.S. but the Jones team refused to reduce the pressure thereafter. Canada was back in front with a deuce in the sixth, then watched Brown keep it open and blank the seventh and eighth ends before Jones stole the ninth and ran the foe out of rocks in the final exchange. “We hung in, made some good shots, got a miss in the first half and we were right in there,” said Brown.  “I played to blank the seventh, we couldn’t get anything going in the eighth and they put one in at the start of the ninth they didn’t mean to put in there. But, sure, we wanted to blank it home and try for two in the 10th, why not? Then we got an untimely miss. We were doing what we wanted to do for a while. We just didn’t quite make it to that last hammer.” The loss dropped the U.S. to 5-and-2 with Scotland’s idle Eve Muirhead sandwiched in between the North American teams in the standings at 6-and-1. In other late matches, Sweden’s Cecilia Ostlund (4-3) stunned Anna Sidorova (4-3) of Russia 10-3, Norway’s Linn Githmark (2-5) clobbered rookie Latvia (1-6), skipped by Iveta Stasa-Sarsune of Jelgava, by an 11-2 score, and Switzerland (2-5), skipped by Corinne Bourquin, stole four points en route to a 7-4 conquest of Japan’s Moe Meguro (1-7). In Wednesday’s Draw 12 at 8:30 a.m., Canada will play Japan, the U.S. faces Switzerland, Sweden plays Latvia and Russia goes against Norway.