Canada’s Jennifer Jones and Brent Laing will play for the bronze medal after falling 6-2 to the United States in a semifinal match at the world mixed doubles curling championship on Friday.
The U.S. duo of Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin stole crucial single points in the first and sixth ends, and then a crushing deuce in the seventh, to end Canada’s gold-medal hopes.
Thiesse and Dropkin shot a combined 92 per cent on Friday.
“They played very, very well,” said Jones. “We didn’t put as much pressure as we would have liked. And you know, it just started off with that steal. If I make that draw in the first end, maybe it changes the game a bit. But we’re still really happy with our week, and we had fun out there. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow morning.”
Trailing 4-2 in the seventh, Jones attempted a risky, last-gasp double-takeout to score a pair, but she wrecked on a guard to give the U.S. a steal of two.
“We played much better in the second half of the game, but all the credit to (Thiesse and Dropkin),” said Laing. “I don’t think she missed a shot. I don’t know what the stats say but she never really gave us an opening. The better team won, and unfortunately that wasn’t us today.”
Jones and Laing will play Norway’s Martine Roenning and Mathias Braenden in Saturday’s bronze-medal game.
The U.S. will play Japan’s Chiaki Matsumura and Yasumasa Tanida for gold. Japan topped Norway 5-4 in the other semifinal.
Canada earned a direct trip to the semifinal game after finishing 8-1 in the round robin and first in Pool A, while the United States, which finished second in Pool B at 7-2, had to beat Scotland 8-6 in an earlier qualifying match to advance to the semi.
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