NAPANEE, ONT. — The slim playoff chances for the P.E.I. teams took another hit Tuesday at the M&M Meats Canadian junior curling championships.
Sarah Fullerton’s Cornwall and Charlottetown team split a pair of games, but now has four losses and will need a good streak the rest of the week to reach the playoffs.
Fullerton, Michelle McQuaid, Sara MacRae and Hillary Thompson are not eliminated from the chase, but can’t afford many more losses.
Alex Matters and his Charlottetown team of Chris Gallant, Kyle Holland and Andrew Cameron lost two close contests to fall to 2-5, well back of the leaders.
Yukon scored three points in the ninth end in the afternoon to break open a tie game and score a 7-4 victory over the Matters foursome.
In the morning contest, the P.E.I. team lost 5-4 to Ontario when the host province scored a single in the final frame.
As for the Fullerton, her team scored four points in the last end when Ontario was trying to steal a point and the result was an 11-6 victory.
In the afternoon encounter against Yukon, the team fell 9-5 as Yukon posted three points in each of the second and sixth ends.
“We had a chance to steal three there in the ninth, but you got to hand it to (skip) Sarah Koltun there, she made a great shot,” said Fullerton, a three-time provincial junior champion. “We put the end together pretty good, and it was looking in our favour. Even to steal two would have been good, but that’s how it goes.
“We always expect them to come out firing and that’s what they did today,” she added. “You can’t leave them a shot, and (Koltun) made two really good shots to get three in two separate ends. We just couldn’t seem to generate a deuce to come back.
“It’s not what we wanted, but now we are at four losses and we just have to focus on one game at a time. If we could win out, then we still have a chance. We just have to come out sharper and all four of us have to have our A game.”
Matters had similar sentiments after the team’s second loss of the day.
“Obviously, this isn’t the record we were looking for,” he said. “But we’re not playing too badly, so we’re just enjoying the experience and seeing how we can do. We have to keep plugging along, we’ve had some bad breaks and just a couple of misses have come at the wrong time.”
After Tuesday’s games, British Columbia and Alberta junior women were tied for first place at 6-1, following the first loss of the tournament by Alberta and another win for B.C.
Nova Scotia and Manitoba were tied for second spot at 5-2.
Alberta also lost for the first time Tuesday night on the junior men’s side of the event to create a three-way tie for first place with Nova Scotia and Manitoba.
At the conclusion of the 12-game round robin Friday — after any tiebreakers, if necessary — the first-place teams advance to their respective finals, while the second- and third-place finishers meet in semifinals.
Both the women’s and men’s finals will be televised on TSN with the women’s final on Saturday and the men’s final on Sunday. Both games are at 8 p.m. AT.
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