“I don’t think she missed a shot”
Another world championship playoff loss has Canadian curling fans looking for answers.
USA’s Cory Thiesse and Kory Dropkin dropped a 6-2 decision on the duo of Jennifer Jones and husband Brent Laing at the world mixed doubles championship at Gangneung, Korea.
The semifinal victory vaults USA into the final to face Japan. The pairing of Chiaki Matsumura and Yasumasa Tanida continued their strong play with a stolen 5-4 win over Norway’s Martine Roenning and Mathias Braenden in the other semifinal.
“I’m just speechless right now,” said Dropkin, who teamed with Sarah Anderson at two previous world mixed doubles championships, losing in the quarterfinals both times.
“I mean Cory played great in that game and saved us a couple of times there. I’m super happy, very pleased right now. We came up with a great game, we had a couple of breaks towards the end there. I’m just excited for being in the gold medal game.”
“(USA) played very, very well,” said Jones. “We didn’t put as much pressure as we would have liked.”
The U.S. stole crucial single points in the first and sixth ends, and a crushing pair in the seventh, to end Canada’s gold-medal hopes at the Gangneung Curling Centre.
“And you know, it just started off with that steal,” Jones continued. “If I make that draw in the first end, maybe it changes the game a bit.”
After the first-end steal, the teams would trade singles the next four ends in a low-scoring affair until the sixth end when Jones again was heavy on her draw.
And in the seventh, Jones was trying a risky, last-gasp double-takeout to score a pair, but she wrecked on a guard to give the U.S. the stolen deuce.
“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.”
“But we’re still really happy with our week, and we had fun out there,” said Jones. “We’ll see what we can do tomorrow morning.”
Canada will face Norway on Saturday for the bronze medals.
The U.S.—which like Canada has never won a gold medal in the World Mixed Doubles—curled lights out in the semifinal, shooting a combined 92 per cent.
In round-robin play, teams were better than 90 per cent just four times out of 180 recorded team scores over the past week.
Curling Canada recently announced a spate of changes to their high performance program, now under the direction of Scotland’s David Murdoch.
The changes are discussed in the most recent episode of the 2 Girls and a Game podcast.
Canada and Japan topped their respective pool groups and earned berths directly in the semifinals.
In quarterfinal action, the Norwegians defeated Estonia (Marie Kaldvee and Harri Lill) by an 8-5 count while USA beat the defending world champions, Scotland’s Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat, with an 8-6 victory.
In relegation matches, the Czech Republic upended Germany 5-3 and Korea defeated Austria 8-6.