Come hell or high water, Einarson endures

KAMLOOPS — Team Canada’s Kerri Einarson was in dangerous territory.

It didn’t matter that she went undefeated in round-robin action, Einarson found herself on the ropes.

After losing Friday night’s battle of Manitoba in a Page playoff seeding game with Jennifer Jones, Einarson had to outlast a red-hot Chrstina Black and Nova Scotia Saturday afternoon to stay alive and advance to Sunday’s semifinal at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Kamloops.

A loss would’ve sent Einarson back to Gimli, ending her dominant, historic run at curling nationals.

But the drive for four is alive and well as Einarson looked exactly how you’d expect the reigning three-time champion to look by dismantling Black en route to a 9-4 victory.

Einarson now awaits the loser of Saturday night’s Page 1-versus-2 game between Jones and Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville. The winner between Jones-McCarville — which concluded after press deadline — gets pushed through to Sunday’s championship game (8 p.m. CT).

“It’s straight forward from here on out. Our backs are against the wall now and we have to win so we just went out and got it done,” said third Val Sweeting. “I think we were just calm and confident today.”

Einarson was brilliant, shooting a game-high 96 per cent. Black’s clutch draws carried Nova Scotia to the final four, but every time she made a big shot on Saturday, Einarson answered right back.

“Kerri’s fearless. Absolutely fearless,” said Canada’s coach Reid Carruthers. “Especially when she’s feeling it, she’s calling doubles that I would question myself, like, whether or not I would approach them. But that’s what makes her so good.”

It was one bad end that put Canada in this situation in the first place. Einarson coughed up four points to Jones in the second frame on Friday. Einarson and fought back to make things interesting, but it was too much to overcome, and they lost 7-6.

Despite winning Pool A with an 8-0 mark, that one loss to Jones forced Einarson to win a do-or-die game just to reach the semifinal.

“Yeah, it’s definitely a different format, but now our backs are against the wall,” said Einarson, repeating the team’s favourite phrase.

“I know with us that we never let up and we never give up. We’re just going to keep grinding it out and playing like we know we can. I think this was the best that we’ve played yet.”

Einarson, Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard and lead Briane Harris have never lost back-to-back games at women’s curling nationals.

“Honestly, they very rarely lose two games in a row (in general). They’re one of those teams that when they lose, they get mad and then come out firing,” said Carruthers.

“Getting over a loss like we had (to Jones) where we got outplayed is one of the things that I think we do really well. We go back to the drawing board, talk about what we did well, talk about what we did badly and just try to improve on that. They just put the blinders on and set their sight on the task at hand. These ladies are awesome.”

Einarson’s teammates also brought their best stuff as they combined to shoot 88 per cent. Nova Scotia was nowhere near as sharp at 73 per cent. A pregnant Harris, who has a June due date, shot 93 per cent and never missed a beat while sweeping.

“She’s a champ, holy smokes. She’s got a little one in her and it’s motivating her just to push through,” said Einarson.

“It’s pretty amazing to see that. I know I don’t think I could do it.”

With two more wins, Einarson’s team will be the first since the Colleen Jones dynasty (2001-04) to win four straight Scotties crowns. They took a similar path last year as they lost a championship round game against New Brunswick’s Andrea Kelly to fall to the Page 3-versus-4 match. Einarson responded by winning three in a row, including a 9-6 victory over McCarville in the final.

“If we play like (how we did today), I think we should be OK,” said Einarson.

[email protected]

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31