By Joel Gasson

Jones, Sweeting set to clash in Scotties final

Feb 22, 2015 | 3:02 PM

Over a week of curling comes down to this. Alberta versus Manitoba with a Canadian women’s curling championship on the line.

The final at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts goes Sunday night at Mosaic Place in Moose Jaw and it’s a familiar match up as Alberta and Manitoba have played each other twice already, both of them ending in Manitoba wins, including the 1-2 page playoff game on Friday night.

“Yeah, third time’s the charm maybe. It’ll be a close game, we’ll just try not to spot them four and it should be better,” said Sweeting with a chuckle.

That 1-2 page playoff game did not get off to a good start for Sweeting and team out of the Saville Community Centre in Edmonton giving up that four-spot to Jones in the first end. They did eventually battle back to tie the game later but it wasn’t enough as Jones did draw to the four-foot for the 8-6 win on her final shot of the game.

That loss was Sweeting’s third in a row after a 9-0 start to the week. It also forced her to take a longer route to the final by facing Saskatchewan in the semifinal. A game they would end up winning 7-6, thanks in-part to some mistakes by Stefanie Lawton but also some great shots by Sweeting, including a game-saving freeze with her last.

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The win sent Sweeting to her second straight Scotties final, after losing to Rachel Homan’s team out of the Ottawa Curling Club 8-6 in Montreal last year.

This time around, the skip originally born in Redvers feels like they will be in a better state mentally to try and win this game.

“You dream of winning the Scotties and being in that final,” she said.

“We were overthrowing a little bit. I think we had the adrenaline going last year.”

While Sweeting and her team are entering their sophomore final, this is standard procedure for Jones. When she takes to the ice it will be her eight finals appearance at the Scotties. Experience she hopes will give her a bit of an edge.

“You know what to expect and how to prepare for it,” she said.

“But, anything can happen on any given day. We know they’re a great team and we’ll have to play our absolute best to beat them.”

At this point, it’s not clear who the fans in Moose Jaw will be cheering for in the game. Odds are pretty good it might be Sweeting, but it definitely would have been Saskatchewan had they come back to win that game.

That being said, Jones wasn’t sweating having to play in-front of a potential sea of green.

“Oh no, I think we’ve played in four finals against the hometown team. It’s a tonne of fun, it’s a great atmosphere. We always want the crowd to be exciting, no matter who’s playing,” she said.

The good news for Jones on that front, if the week that was is any indication the crowd should be large and into in even without the home team playing in the big game.

A win would be Jones’ fifth national championship.

Game time is just after 7 p.m., Jones will have hammer in the first end because she won the 1-2 page playoff game on Friday night.

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