SELKIRK, Man. – She lost her newest recruit and fought the clock but Edmonton’s Valerie Sweeting still raised her hands in victory Sunday after a 5-4 win at the Masters Grand Slam of Curling women’s final.
With the help of Manitoba veteran Cathy Overton-Clapham, she used a time out to get her last rock off and remove Sweden’s counter from the button to beat Olympic silver medallist Margaretha Sigfridsson.
All part of her plan, said Sweeting, who has better clock management on her to-do list.
“I wanted to take it (the time out) on my last so I’d have lots of time to throw,” she said after the win, her first ever at a Slam. “Yesterday we almost ran out of time and we didn’t have a time out.”
It was a tight game but Swedish fourth stone Maria Prytz flashed on a couple of hits and Sigfridsson, who throws lead, said mistakes like that are costly.
“It went back and forth and we missed too many key shots,” she said. “You can’t afford that.”
To get to the final, Sweeting had to knock off reigning Scotties champ Rachel Homan on Saturday night.
Overton-Clapham, who threw third stones for Sweeting, was a last minute recruit after Andrea Crawford unexpectedly left to return to her native New Brunswick. She only joined this year as a replacement for second Joanne Courtney, who joined Homan’s rink.
“I did say seriously? I haven’t thrown a rock in three weeks, are you sure you still want me?” said Overton-Clapham, third for current Olympic champ Jennifer Jones until she was dumped in favour of Kaitlyn Lawes in 2010.
She went on to successfully skip her own rink but most recently played third for the Crystal Webster rink in Calgary.
“She was so great, we learned so much from her this week,” said Sweeting, who has already replaced Crawford with Lori Olson Johns, who played second for Calgary’s Cheryl Bernard.
To get to the final Sigfridsson had to go through Jones, who beat her in the women’s curling final to claim Olympic gold in Sochi.
With the win, Sweeting picked up $23,500 in cash and 12 Rogers Cup points and second place earned Sigfridsson $13,500.
Sigfridsson was down 4-2 in seven when Prytz at least partially made up for those flashes with a deuce on a long raise takeout to tie the game.
The eighth end was a nail biter down to the last rock as Sweeting tried to keep the house open so she could use the hammer and Sigfridsson capitalized on misses.
Sweeting had just 15 seconds left on her clock as she used her last time out to throw her last rock.
“We burnt a lot more earlier in the game than we needed to but it all worked out in the end.”
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