Aberdeen’s Rebecca Morrison will go all out to end Sweden’s unbeaten run this morning at the world junior curling championships.
The Scotland skip, playing on home ice at Curl Aberdeen, knows the importance of a victory against the leaders after their third defeat of the tournament yesterday against South Korea.
Morrison’s rink are locked in a five-way tie for third after their 8-5 defeat yesterday, with China, South Korea, Norway and Switzerland. Canada, who lost their only game of the competition so far to Scotland on Sunday, are second in the standings.
Should any teams be tied for the play-off places come Thursday’s final round-robin fixtures, the team with the superior draw shot challenge record will advance to the last four.
Morrison said: “We were joint third after Monday and we’re still there today, so it’s all very close. Sweden is a big game for us and hopefully we can win that, then they win the rest of their games. It’s good that China just lost to them but we’re going to have to come out all guns blazing for that game.
“It’s important not to think about the draw shot challenge during the game. We need to focus on one at a time but we want to win them all. But it’s not something I’m thinking about too much right now and I don’t want to get too caught up in it.”
A scoreless first two ends for the women, followed by a steal for the South Koreans in the third, was not the start Morrison was hoping for. But things got worse for the Scottish rink, with Korean skip Kim Min-Ji notching a triple to put them 4-0 up as the host nation were left staring at a third defeat.
Morrison got her rink on the scoreboard with the hammer in end five, to reduce the deficit to three at the half-way point, but a further double from the Koreans put Scotland further into trouble with four ends to go. The hosts refused to go away, however, with a double in the seventh creating a tense final few ends for the leading Koreans. Both teams traded doubles in ends eight and nine, with the Scots chose to conceding for an 8-5 loss.
Morrison said: “We had a really bad fourth end – there were a few misses that made it quite tough for me. Apart from that end it was quite close. But it was tough to get back after that.
“I didn’t think there was a huge chance we could get back into it. I thought we could get a three in the ninth then steal a two but unfortunately it didn’t work out.”
Earlier in the day, the Scottish men’s squad maintained their unbeaten start to the championships with a 7-5 win over South Korea. The contest was tied 5-5 heading into the final end, only for skip Ross Whyte to pull out a double to hand the Scots their fifth victory.
In their final game of the day last night they faced the United States, the team sat second behind them in the standings. (INSERT SUMMARY)
The top four progress to Friday’s semi-finals with the medal matches taking place on Saturday