OTTAWA — After opening the Olympic Trials with three losses in a row, Val Sweeting has to treat every game like a must-win to keep her playoff chances alive.
The Edmonton skip evened her record at 3-3 on Wednesday morning with an 8-6 victory over Casey Scheidegger in the early draw at Canadian Tire Centre.
"A wise friend said, ‘You don’t have to win five games, you just have to win one game five times,"’ Sweeting said. "I thought that was really good advice."
Scheidegger, from Lethbridge, Alta., fell to 2-3.
"I think we just struggled a little bit with some of the more precise shots, but it will come," Scheidegger said.
Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen beat Saskatoon’s Steve Laycock 10-4 in the early men’s game. McEwen scored four points in the sixth end to put the game out of reach.
"Getting that four made it a pretty routine shot selection from that point on," McEwen said. "So it was kind of nice. It gave the brain a break after that point."
McEwen improved to 4-1 while Laycock dropped to 2-4.
Several groups of boisterous schoolchildren took in the morning draw. Announced attendance was 3,686 in the 17,000-seat venue.
Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones (5-0) was scheduled to play Calgary’s Chelsea Carey (4-0) in a battle of undefeated skips in the afternoon draw.
Calgary’s Kevin Koe, who leads the men’s standings at 5-0, was scheduled to play Toronto’s John Epping (1-3).
Round-robin play continues through Friday and the finals are scheduled on Sunday. The winners will represent Canada at the Pyeongchang Olympics in February.
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