Canada felled in extra ends by Scotland at World Women’s Curling Championship

SILKEBORG, Denmark — Canada’s Chelsea Carey has reached the halfway point of the round-robin schedule of the 2019 LGT World Women’s Curling Championship, presented by Pioneer Hi-Bred, and there is work to do in the back half of the schedule.

Chelsea Carey directs her teammates during Tuesday’s loss to Scotland. (Photo, World Curling Federation/Céline Stucki)

Carey’s Calgary team — which includes vice-skip Sarah Wilkes, second Dana Ferguson, lead Rachel Brown, alternate Jill Officer, team coach Dan Carey and national coach Elaine Dagg-Jackson — dropped a disappointing 6-5 extra-end decision to Scotland’s Sophie Jackson on Tuesday at the Silkeborg Sportscenter.

The result left Canada with a 3-3 record and needing to pick up the pace of its final six round-robin games in order to grab one of the six available playoff positions.

Carey’s last-rock draw attempt around a guard just off the centre-line in the 11th end didn’t bury, and Jackson, 22, was able to make the hit and score the winning point.

Rachel Brown, left, and Dana Ferguson sweep a Team Canada shot. (Photo, World Curling Federation/Céline Stucki)

“We’re just not getting rocks where we need them, when we need them,” said coach Dan Carey. “I’m not sure what happened; we just didn’t make as many shots in the last half of the game as we needed to. Really, it came down to that short run that we missed, and we seemed to struggle from there on.”

That “short run” was a shot Chelsea Carey attempted in the seventh end — a runback takeout that would have scored four for the Canadians and given them a 7-2 lead — didn’t curl enough Canada had to settle for a single and a 4-2 lead, keeping the Scots in the game.

Jackson immediately tied the game with an eighth-end deuce, and stole one in the ninth to take her first lead. Carey had a shot for the win in the 10th — a difficult draw that was a foot heavy. And in the 11th, Jackson — who’d missed three straight games with a back injury — settled her nerves to make the shot for the win, which improved Scotland’s record to 4-2.

“We’ll talk about it, hopefully find some good from it, get something to eat, and then go out to play,” said Dan Carey. “Now, we just have to go out and play. Make some shots and see what happens. Our backs are to the wall pretty much; we just have to make some shots and win some games. And then it’ll feel a lot different.”

Team Canada is back on the ice Tuesday at 2 p.m. Eastern against Jamie Sinclair of the United States (2-4).

All of Canada’s 12 round-robin games are being broadcast by TSN. Go to www.tsn.ca/2018-19-curling-broadcast-schedule-1.593081 to see the broadcast schedule.

For Team Canada updates, go to www.curling.ca. Follow us on Twitter, @curlingcanada. 

For live scoring, standings and team lineups from the 2019 LGT World Women’s Curling Championship, presented by Pioneer Hi-Bred, go to www.worldcurling.org/wwcc2019.

The French version of this story will be posted as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/?lang=fr