Ottawa’s Rachel Homan fended off an early onslaught by Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones, battling back from two separate two point disadvantages to win the final game of the women’s portion of the Grand Slam of Curling Canadian Open 8-7 at the Gallagher Centre this past week.
The win is Homan’s third straight Grand Slam of Curling Tour victory; she also won The Masters in Truro, Nova Scotia, and The National in Oshawa, Ontario. “We’re pretty excited (to win),” said Homan immediately following her Canadian Open victory. “Winning three in a row, it hasn’t been done before so we’re excited to keep it rolling.”
But it wasn’t easy for Team Homan, who was made up of skip Rachel Homan, third Emma Miskew, second Joanne Courtney and lead Lisa Weagle.
Team Jones did exactly what they said they were going to do early on, coming out strong and opening with a deuce in the opening end for a 2-0 lead.
A rare mistake by Team Jones’ third Kaitlyn Lawes in the second end led to Homan scoring three to take the lead, only to have Team Jones storm back with a double takeout late in the end resulting in a three-spot of their own and a 5-3 Jones lead after three ends.
Team Jones then avoided near-disaster as Jones made a nice tap back to sit second stone in a sea of Homan red, limiting the Ottawa skip to just one when it looked for a moment as if Homan would score at least three to keep Jones in the lead at 5-4 after four ends.
Team Jones then got lucky in the fifth end. Despite three underthrown Jones rocks and a pick, Homan managed to pick up a steal of just one to bring the game even at 5-5 after five ends.
But that tie was short-lived, as Homan picked up her 13th steal of the tournament to take a 6-5 lead through six ends.
A Jones deuce in the seventh end saw the Winnipeg rink take a 7-6 lead into the final end, where a wrecked Team Jones shot proved to be a costly error giving Homan an opportunity to score a deuce and take the victory which she did for her Ottawa-based team, 8-7 the final. “Jones played really well,” offered Homan of her opponent in the final. “They came out firing and we had a couple of misses here and there and they had some really well-deserved two’s and three’s and we had to battle back hard in that game.”
The win is Team Homan’s seventh title of the season and improves their overall record to 52-6 in the 2015/16 campaign.
Team Homan also defeated Anna Sidorova (7-2) and Chelsea Carey (6-0) in the playoffs and Tracy Fleury (7-3), Binia Feltscher (6-1) and Stefanie Lawton (8-2) in the qualifiers with her lone loss of the competition coming at the hands of Alina Paetz (7-5).
