Joey Payeur
In Jenna Walsh’s own words, it was a collection of both moments of brilliance and frustration.
So went the tale of the week for the Devlin native, who plays second for the Sudbury-based team skipped by Tracy Fleury, which recovered from an 0-2 start to reach the quarter-finals of the 2017 Meridian Canadian Open in North Battleford, Sask.—one of the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling events this season.
The march to the title for Fleury, Walsh, third Crystal Webster, and lead Amanda Gates was halted with a 7-4 loss to two-time Scotties national runner-up Val Sweeting of Edmonton.
“Overall, I think as a team we did not play to our full potential,” conceded Walsh (nee Enge), who now makes her home in Thunder Bay.
“Each player took their turn to have a good game.”
The quarter-final got out of hand early as Sweeting scored two in the first, added one in the third, and then stole three in the fourth to lead 6-1.
“Team Sweeting had us on the ropes from the get-go,” said Walsh.
“They played very well and we were forced to take singles when we had the hammer,” she noted.
“In the end, Sweeting ran us out of rocks.”
The quarter-finals looked only to be a pipe dream after Fleury’s crew suffered two-straight losses coming out of the gate.
In a classic one-that-got-away scenario, the rink was creaming Allison Flaxey (Caledon) 6-1 after four ends.
But Flaxey suddenly caught fire by notching a four-ender in the fifth before adding steals of one each in the sixth and seventh to lead 7-6.
Fleury tied it up with one in the eighth but had to give up the hammer for the extra end, which Flaxey used to score a deuce for the 9-7 victory.
“In the fifth end, Flaxey turned it around and made some beautiful freezes on our rocks, which were nearly impossible to get out of the rings,” recalled Walsh.
“Momentum switched after that end, and Team Flaxey were able to use the five-rock rule to their advantage and stole the rest of the game,” she added.
In their second game, a 2-1 lead after five ends wasn’t enough against defending Manitoba provincial champion Kerri Einarson (Winnipeg), who scored the last four points of the game to prevail 5-2.
“We did not have a great game against the Einarson team,” lamented Walsh.
“We kept it close until the sixth end when they were able to crack a deuce.
“We had a couple of counters during the seventh until Einarson made a nice run-back double and sit buried behind a guard,” she added.
“We were forced to take our one point but came up short.
“By that time, we were down by too many points and had to take some risks,” Walsh said.
“We made some mistakes and the Einarson team capitalized.”
With the triple-knockout format not allowing anymore room for error, Team Fleury had to deal with defending Canadian champ Chelsea Carey of Calgary—and deal it did.
Fleury nabbed two in the first, then added steals of one, three, and one in the next three ends to make it 7-0 through four en route to an 8-2 rout in just six ends.
“Our backs were against the wall when we played Carey,” noted Walsh.
“We didn’t give them an inch,” she stressed.
“By the time it was Carey’s turn to shoot, she was having to call ‘Hail Marys’ and hope for the best.
“It always feels great when we play this well, especially against the reigning Canadian champions,” Walsh added.
With a spot in the playoffs on the line, Fleury had to tackle 2009 world champion Bingyu Wang from Harbin, China.
Wang jumped ahead 2-0 in the second, but Fleury chipped away with one in the third before stealing a pair in the fourth to lead 3-2.
Then it was a trade-off of singles the rest of the way, with Fleury getting the last one in the eighth to pull out the 5-4 triumph.
“Our game against Wang was a battle,” admitted Walsh.
“We were in trouble for a few ends and had situations come up that really ate away at our time clock,” she noted.
Walsh said Fleury made two amazing shots in the final end to secure the victory.
“Her first was a thin slash double to sit shot,” she recalled.
“Wang was able to easily remove this rock to roll behind cover to sit two.
“[But] Tracy called the run double and made the shot with 17 seconds left on the clock,” Walsh noted.
Walsh, meanwhile, is optimistic about the team’s chances heading into the Northern Ontario Scotties running Jan. 18-22 in Nipigon, where the 2015 champs will look to regain the title it lost to Thunder Bay’s Krista McCarville last year.
“We are very happy to have qualified for playoffs [at the Open] and really think this will help our momentum build going into the provincial Scotties,” she said.
