Team Homan takes home third Grand Slam of Curling trophy

Rachel Homan led her team to a 6-4 victory in the women's finals of the Masters

Skip Rachel Homan watching her shot go down the ice during a match in March of 2013. Wikimedia/Katarzyna Wicik

Rachel Homan led her team to a 6-4 victory over Team Sweeting in the women’s finals of the 2015 Masters curling in Truro, N.S. on Sunday.

Team Homan was led by its skip, who made 99 per cent of her shots in the match, as opposed to her counterpart who only curled 81 per cent.

Val Sweeting, the reigning Masters champion, played well throughout the entire week, posting a 5-1 record, but the team from Ottawa, Ont., proved to be too strong in this year’s finals, as Team Homan out-curled her team 93 to 84 per cent overall.

The scoring opened up in the second end after a pair of missed shots by Olson-Johns and Sweeting set Homan up for the easy draw to the four-foot to take the 2-0 lead.

With nine stones in the house for the last shot in the third, Sweeting opted to throw her last rock away and take the single point. This came after a near-perfect draw by Homan found the button to take second-shot, forcing her opposing skip to settle with just one and relinquish the hammer.

After curling 100 per cent through the first two ends, Emma Miskew had a couple of miscues in the fourth, forcing her skip to make a draw with her final shot to take one, and the 3-1 lead into break.

Miskew would finish the match making 94 per cent of her shots, including a terrific effort in the sixth, when her first stone threaded the needle between a pair of guards, resulting in a double-takeout.

Lisa Weagle was unable to practice before the finals due to a fall in the change room that resulted in a bandage over her left eye. However, she did not allow this to bother her on the front-end of Team Homan, as the 30-year-old lead was able to curl to 90 per cent.

“It was a little bit scary before the game started,” Homan said, to Sportsnet. “But everybody came out 100 per cent and making everything the best we can.

“It wasn’t that mentally easy out there.”

Following one point on the board by Team Sweeting in the fifth, Homan made a tricky angle-raise with her last rock in the sixth to take a deuce, and a 5-2 lead into the final two ends.

Facing a lot of yellow granite in the house, Sweeting needed to make an open draw to the four-foot to take a point with the hammer. Unfortunately for the 28-year-old skip, her final shot curled a bit too much, giving up a steal of one in the seventh.

Needing four points to tie the game and force an extra end, it was only a matter of time before the team from Edmonton, Alta., ran out of stones in the final end.

With the victory, the world No. 1 team took home its fourth win through just five tournaments this season, and its third Masters win.

“We had a rough year, last year, we got to the final but didn’t quite make it,” Homan said to Sportsnet. “Coming back to Masters and winning it is just an unbelievable feeling, and the way we did it today, I’m just really proud of my team.”

About this article

By: Connor Dorion
Posted: Nov 1 2015 8:15 pm
Edition:
Filed under: Curling Other Sports Sports
Topics: