SAULT STE. MARIE, Ont. - As Jennifer Jones was leaving the ice at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts on Tuesday afternoon, she spotted a pair of young fans waving and shouting encouragement from the stands.
Jogging over and jumping up to high-five the youngsters, the Canadian skip was greeted by giggles and wide smiles.
Jones was smiling, too, after bouncing back from Monday's back-to-back losses with wins over Alberta and British Columbia, which gave the two-time defending champion a 5-2 record after four days of play at the national women's curling championship.
Canada is tied with P.E.I.'s Kathy O'Rourke for second in the round-robin standings, one game behind Ontario's Krista McCarville (6-1).
"Yeah, we were a little better," Jones said. "We're still not as good as we'd like to be, but we played a couple of very good teams."
After beating Alberta's Valerie Sweeting 9-7 in the morning draw, Jones capped the day with a 10-7 win over one of her top rivals, B.C.'s Kelly Scott.
"We're not on a roll yet, no," added Jones, a Winnipeg native. "We want to get on a roll in the playoffs.
"We still missed some shots that we'd like to get back."
Against B.C., Canada second Jill Officer set up a big four points in the second end and went on to make 96 per cent of her shots overall.
Scott's steal of two in the fourth end and counted another in the six to cut Jones' lead to 6-5, but the two-time defending champion added two more in the seventh and another in the eighth.
Scott cut the lead to 9-7 in the ninth, but would get no closer.
"We had to hit some finesse shots, and the ice was the straightest it has been," said Scott, who was briefly a teammate of Jones as a junior.
"It got kind of sludgey at the end. We had to make some tough shots on some tough ice out there."
Scott fell to 4-3 and sits in a three-way tie for third place, with Quebec's Eve Belisle and Manitoba's Jill Thurston, heading into the fifth day of the tournament.
"We're happy," Jones said. "This is a pretty good spot for us."
Canada skip Jones says rink is in pretty good spot with 5-2 record at Scotties
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Published on
February 3, 2010
- Published on February 24, 2010
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