Ottawa鈥檚 Rachel Homan fended off an early onslaught by Winnipeg鈥檚 Jennifer Jones, battling back from two separate two point disadvantages to win the final game of the women鈥檚 portion of the Grand Slam of Curling Canadian Open 8-7 at the Gallagher Centre this past week.
The win is Homan鈥檚 third straight Grand Slam of Curling Tour victory; she also won The Masters in Truro, Nova Scotia, and The National in Oshawa, Ontario. 鈥淲e鈥檙e pretty excited (to win),鈥� said Homan immediately following her Canadian Open victory. 鈥淲inning three in a row, it hasn鈥檛 been done before so we鈥檙e excited to keep it rolling.鈥�
But it wasn鈥檛 easy for Team Homan, who was made up of skip Rachel Homan, third Emma Miskew, second Joanne Courtney and lead Lisa Weagle.
Team Jones did exactly what they said they were going to do early on, coming out strong and opening with a deuce in the opening end for a 2-0 lead.
A rare mistake by Team Jones鈥� third Kaitlyn Lawes in the second end led to Homan scoring three to take the lead, only to have Team Jones storm back with a double takeout late in the end resulting in a three-spot of their own and a 5-3 Jones lead after three ends.
Team Jones then avoided near-disaster as Jones made a nice tap back to sit second stone in a sea of Homan red, limiting the Ottawa skip to just one when it looked for a moment as if Homan would score at least three to keep Jones in the lead at 5-4 after four ends.
Team Jones then got lucky in the fifth end. Despite three underthrown Jones rocks and a pick, Homan managed to pick up a steal of just one to bring the game even at 5-5 after five ends.
But that tie was short-lived, as Homan picked up her 13th steal of the tournament to take a 6-5 lead through six ends.
A Jones deuce in the seventh end saw the Winnipeg rink take a 7-6 lead into the final end, where a wrecked Team Jones shot proved to be a costly error giving Homan an opportunity to score a deuce and take the victory which she did for her Ottawa-based team, 8-7 the final. 鈥淛ones played really well,鈥� offered Homan of her opponent in the final. 鈥淭hey came out firing and we had a couple of misses here and there and they had some really well-deserved two鈥檚 and three鈥檚 and we had to battle back hard in that game.鈥�
The win is Team Homan鈥檚 seventh title of the season and improves their overall record to 52-6 in the 2015/16 campaign.
Team Homan also defeated Anna Sidorova (7-2) and Chelsea Carey (6-0) in the playoffs and Tracy Fleury (7-3), Binia Feltscher (6-1) and Stefanie Lawton (8-2) in the qualifiers with her lone loss of the competition coming at the hands of Alina Paetz (7-5).
