Scotland’s Team Morrison were ahead just once in their meeting with the USA at the LGT World Women’s Curling Championships but it happened when it mattered most.
The Scots stole at the final end to claim an 8-7 victory that has revitalised their campaign.
Having suffered a string of narrow defeats, they made the worst possible start when they conceded a three at the opening end of their meeting with confident opponents who were looking well placed to reach the play-offs after winning four of their previous seven matches.
However, from that point the Scottish line-up of Aberdonian Rebecca Morrison, Jen Dodds, who had replaced Gina Aitken in the line-up the previous day, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson, hardly put a foot wrong as they applied relentless pressure on their opponents to claw their way back to level-pegging, before producing a brilliantly constructed final end to give American skip Tabitha Petersen little chance with her final stone.
👏🏴A brilliantly constructed end produces steal at the last to put Scotland ahead for the first and most important time v USA as they claim 8-7 win to revitalise their @worldcurling Champs campaign!
They face hosts Sweden tomorrow.
2⃣W 6⃣L
📸WCF/Jeffrey Au#curling #WWCC2023 pic.twitter.com/X3YLDjXzo3— British Curling (@BritishCurling) March 22, 2023
She made a game attempt to pull off an unlikely hit and roll to snatch the win, but it was not quite sufficient to shift the shot stone and the 8-7 win went Scotland’s way.
Scottish skip Morrison said: “We had a bit of a rough first end losing a steal of three, but from there onwards we brought our absolute A game to the table and just made life really difficult for USA.”
Much-needed confidence boost
She admitted that it had been a challenging few days as one cruel defeat followed another, but reckoned that this win had the potential to change their collective mindset as they set their sights on improving on their record of two wins and six losses to climb the table in their last four matches.
Morrison added: “It’s been really difficult for us, having had so many close games and just coming out on the wrong side every time, so to finally come out on the right side gives us a little bit of a bounce in our step going into these last four games.
“If we’d come out on the wrong side again it would have been tough to get through these last couple of days, but everyone’s doing a great job out there, doing their roles great.
“We just need to keep playing well and keep talking lots about what we’re doing out there.”
The meeting with the USA was their only game of day five. They now face Sweden and New Zealand on the penultimate day of the round-robin stages, before facing Switzerland and Turkey on the final day, knowing that if they win all four matches they could still edge their way into the play-offs.
Conversation