Homan tops Jones to capture Scotties

KINGSTON, Ont.—Ontario’s Rachel Homan showed her mettle as a skip and her skills as a team leader last night at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
Her efforts paid off with a 9-6 win over Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones and her first national women’s curling title.

Homan helped calm teammate Lisa Weagle after she accidentally burned a rock in the fifth end. It could have been disastrous for a young team against an experienced four-time champion in Jones.
But the play didn’t faze the Ontario rink. Weagle responded with excellent sweeping to help Homan draw to the button to cap the end and maintain the team’s momentum.
Ontario put up three points in the seventh, then stole two more in the eighth to put the game out of reach.
“It’s the final game so if you’re not going to stick together, it’s not going to work,” Homan stressed.
“Win or lose, I’m just so proud of our team.”
Homan and her Ottawa Curling Club team of Weagle, Emma Miskew, Alison Kreviazuk, and alternate Stephanie LeDrew now will represent Canada at next month’s world women’s curling championship in Riga, Latvia.
The 23-year-old Homan displayed steely determination all week. She dropped just a single game in the round robin—to Jones—and beat her twice in a row in the playoffs.
The Ontario skip hugged her teammates and coach after the victory, and was overcome with emotion while speaking to reporters afterwards.
She had to pause on occasion as tears of joy welled in her eyes.
“I can’t even comprehend what just happened right now,” Homan admitted.
“It’s unbelievable.”
The partisan crowd at the K-Rock Centre roared its approval in the opening end as Homan jumped out to an early lead. Jones crashed on a guard and Homan made a nice draw to score three.
Jones cut into the lead by scoring one in the second end and then adding another single in the fourth.
Play was delayed for a couple of minutes in the fifth end when Weagle’s broom accidentally made contact with a stone at the 12-foot.
The stone was raised by the broom and the rock actually popped up in the air when the thrown stone made contact with it.
“I just kind of lost track of where I was on the sheet,” Weagle noted.
“I knew we had to sweep it hard, so I tried to get in an extra brush stroke that I shouldn’t have and my broom got wedged in there.”
Two displaced stones had to be returned to their original spots and the Ontario stone was taken out of play. Weagle smiled it off but she appeared more anxious after the error.
“She’s a pretty level-headed person but it can definitely get the better of you if your teammates aren’t on your side,” Homan remarked.
“I think she was maybe a little bit nervous about that but we backed her 100 percent. We were right behind her.”
The Ontario skip came through with a draw on her final shot for a 4-2 lead.
Jones tied the game with a double in the sixth end but Homan regained the lead in the seventh.
She cleared out two Manitoba stones from the eight-foot with her first shot. Jones then was heavy with her final throw, leaving Homan with a draw to score three and the crowd erupted when she nailed it for a 7-4 lead.
Ontario padded its lead with a steal of two after Jones missed a triple-takeout attempt in the eighth end.
“They played great,” Jones said. “They played lights out and they deserved to win today.”
Earlier in the day, B.C.’s Kelly Scott defeated Team Canada’s Heather Nedohin 10-8 to win the bronze medal.
Scott picked up a single in the ninth end and stole another point in the 10th for the victory.
The result came after a disappointing loss to Nedohin in the 3-4 Page playoff game a day earlier.
“We brought our hit weights down today and really didn’t change anything other than that and had a great game out there,” Scott noted.
“So that’s how you want to leave an event like this.”