World Junior Curling Championships – Women: Final

Scotland 8, Canada 6.

Playing their best game of the event, Eve Muirhead led her team of Sarah Macintyre, Vicki Adams and Anna Sloan to Scotland’s third successive women’s junior world title, landing a unique hat-trick for herself and Macintyre in the process.

Scotland’s 8-6 win over a spirited Canada in the final was as clinical as it was deserved.  They took an immediate advantage with a two in the first end but, after blanking the second, Canada responded with a two of their own in the third.

The Scots seemed to have the fourth end under control and were looking to score at least two when an uncharacteristic mistake by Muirhead saw her last stone wreck on front guards, giving Canada a single steal and a 4-3 lead.

The Scots responded immediately with another two in the fifth that was set up by good sweeping on Muirhead’s well-judged first stone.  They then forced Canada to take a single in the sixth when Muirhead produced a good cross-house double take-out to lie three, after which Canada had to draw for one and a 4-4 score.  The Scots moved ahead again with two shots in the seventh, but, once again Canada fought back and levelled in the eighth.

With the score at 6-6, Muirhead wanted to blank the ninth to keep last stone advantage for the final end, but crucially, her attempted hit and roll out just hung on at the back of the house to give Scotland an unwanted single score.

This gave Canada – 6-7 down – the last stone in the tenth.  The Scots kept the pressure on throughout this end and when, Canadian skip Kaitlyn Lawes was slightly heavy with her first shot, Muirhead played a perfect draw onto the button, mostly covered in front, Lawes an extremely difficult hit and stay to win the game.  When she eventually came to play the shot, Lawes was wide and could only nudge but not move the Scottish counter. 

Afterwards, an elated Muirhead said, “I’m very happy.  That was an excellent game and we all played well from the start. I’m very pleased with three times in a row.  In fact, I’m chuffed”.

Speaking about the nail-biting climax to the game, Muirhead added, “For the whole last end we just didn’t want to lose a two.  But when she put her first stone to back-tee we had a chance to put one right on the button.   The ice straightened up a bit so it made it trickier but I couldn’t have played my last one any better”. 

Muirhead watched the final Canadian stone intently from behind , and she was the first in the arena  to see that the line wasn’t correct and jumped in the air to celebrate before it came into the house.  “I knew it wasn’t going to move our stone that much” she explained.

While the remainder of her team travel home, including fifth player Kay Adams, Muirhead, along with coach Isabel Hannan, now moves on to Korea to skip her Scottish Champions in the World Women’s Championship, which start next weekend.

Photo by Hugh Stewart / Scottish Curler