Sweeting, Tirinzoni qualify for playoffs after third straight wins

“Our skip stood on her head,” Olson-Johns said. “She really made some peaches for us and … played incredible. [I’m] really happy to be playing for Val Sweeting right now.

“She made every hit and roll. We were in a pickle a couple of times and she just nailed every shot when we needed her to and put the other team in a difficult situation where we stole a couple and it was clearly because of [Sweeting]’s shots. Kudos to our skip, she made them all today.”

The team will use their time off – almost two days – to do scouting of the ice conditions more so than scouting any opponents, as they are already familiar with most teams.

“We’ll stick around the rink [and] see what the ice is doing,” Sweeting said. “It’s been fantastic – I don’t expect it to change a lot so we’ll just kind of stay with the curling mind and come back for the playoffs.”

Olson-Johns pointed out that when the playoffs do hit, other teams will have had more games under their belt because Team Sweeting is now off, which means it’s important to stay focused during her team’s time off.

“It’s always great to qualify out of ‘A’, but you’re inspired to stay focused and so we’ll be working out, we’ll be getting some rest, we’ll be practicing tomorrow and if we can get on again for a practice at any time on Saturday before we play, we will.”

All of those women’s quarter-final games are scheduled for Saturday at 4 p.m.

Meanwhile, after the loss to Tirinzoni, Englot is now in the ‘B’ bracket, and will take on the winner of Lethbridge’s Casey Scheidegger and Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg at 3 p.m. on Friday. Harrison, also now in ‘B’, will face off against Canadian Olympic gold medalist Jennifer Jones on Friday at 11:30 a.m., after Jones defeated Kerri Einarson in draw eight.

Other scores from draw eight saw Allison Flaxey of Caledon win 11-5 over Brianne Meilleur of Winnipeg, forcing Meilleur to the ‘C’ bracket. Flaxey stays in ‘B’ and has a 3 p.m. Friday game against an opponent yet to be determined.

Finally, defending champion John Epping of Toronto stayed alive after a 6-3 win over Scotland’s Kyle Smith, sending the Scotsman home after an 0-3 tournament.

Epping will play the loser of Thursday night’s game between Brendan Bottcher and Mike McEwan.

Nathan Kanter is battlefordsNOW’s sports reporter and voice of the Battlefords North Stars. He can be reached at Nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11

by Nathan Kanter

Sweeting, Tirinzoni qualify for playoffs after third straight wins

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