Team Canada’s Kerri Einarson and Team Wild Card 1’s Tracy Fleury will both be interested spectators for the start of the playoff round at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Thunder Bay.
Einarson and Fleury each won their respective pools with Thursday’s conclusion of the round robin and earned byes to the second round of the playoffs on Friday night.
Team Manitoba’s Mackenzie Zacharias can still make it three Manitoba-based teams in the six-team playoff round. Zacharias lost her final game to Einarson 10-7 in an all-Manitoba showdown. A win would have seen the Manitoba champs from Altona join them in the playoffs. Instead they’ll have to win a do-or-die tiebreaker game on Friday morning against the Northwest Territories’ Kerry Galusha.
Team Zacharias scored five points in the second end and was well on their way to securing a playoff spot. But Einarson and the two-time defending champions replied with a four-ender in the fifth end, and then stole a deuce in the ninth to finish the round robin with a perfect 8-0 record.
READ MORE: Einarson rink remains unbeaten, Fleury rink clinches playoff spot at Scotties
Fleury came out of COVID protocol on Thursday after missing her team’s first seven games. They won their final round robin game over Northern Ontario’s Krista McCarville 8-6 to win Pool A with a 7-1 record.
The winner of the tiebreaker game will advance to the playoffs to face New Brunswick’s Andrea Crawford who finished second in Pool A. The other first round playoff match will see Northern Ontario against Nova Scotia’s Christina Black. Fleury awaits the winner in Friday night’s draw, while Einarson will face either Manitoba, Northwest Territories or New Brunswick.
The two winners of those matches will be seeded 1-2 in the Page Playoffs and will face each other for the right to go straight to the final.
The final is scheduled for Sunday night.
Pool A
Team (Skip)
x-Wild Card (1) (Fleury) 7-1
x-New Brunswick (Crawford) 6-2
x-Northern Ontario (McCarville) 5-3
Saskatchewan (Barker) 4-4
Prince Edward Island (Birt) 4-4
Wild Card (2) (Carey) 4-4
Wild Card (3) (Miskew) 4-4
Newfoundland & Labrador (Hill) 2-6
Nunavut (MacPhail) 0-8
Pool B
Team (Skip)
x-Canada (Einarson) 8-0
x-Nova Scotia (Black) 5-3
t-Northwest Territories (Galusha) 5-3
t-Manitoba (Zacharias) 5-3
Ontario (Duncan) 4-4
Alberta (Walker) 3-5
Quebec (St-Georges) 3-5
British Columbia (Arsenault) 3-5
Yukon (Birnie) 0-8
x: – clinched playoff berth; t – advance to tiebreaker; Note: Top three teams per pool qualify for playoffs.
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