January 17, 2014 - 11:52 AM
LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Jennifer Jones rebounded from a tough loss as North America maintained its three-point lead of the World squad at curling's Continental Cup after the two teams split the three available points in Friday's early draw.
The North Americans led 7.5-4.5 after four draws, but it looked like they were going to increase their lead after Friday's early traditional team matches. Ottawa's Rachel Homan had a two-point lead over Japan's Satsuki Fujisawa and the hammer in the eighth and final end.
But Homan missed on her last-rock hit attempt to give Fujisawa a stolen deuce to tie the game 5-5. With no extra ends in the Continental Cup, each team was awarded half a point in the overall standings.
"It was very, very exciting (to get a tie in that game)," said Fujisawa through an interpreter. "Halfway through when we lost those two points (through a Homan steal in the fifth end), we thought we were going to lose, but we got that one point and then at the end we thought we were going to lose in the eighth end but we managed to get the two points back and get the tie which was exciting."
Winnipeg's Jones earned North America's full point, stealing two in the first end and three more in each of the third and fourth ends for a 9-3 win over Sweden's Margaretha Sigfridsson.
It was a much better result for Jones's rink, which lost 12-2 to Scotland's Eve Muirhead in Thursday's tournament-opening draw.
"We certainly felt a lot better out there today," said second Jill Officer. "We were a lot more confident with the ice and with ourselves too which made a big difference. We're happy to put some points on the board for Team North America as well. It's nice to be able to bounce back like that because yesterday certainly wasn't pretty and definitely wasn't our normal team (performance)."
Reigning men's world champion Niklas Edin defeated American skip John Shuster for the World's full point.
A singles draw and another team draw were held later Friday.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2014