Heather Nedohin took a look at herself in the mirror Monday night and she didn’t like what she saw.
“Unfortunately I let the team down, I just didn’t play as well as I wanted to and we lost the opportunity and unfortunately let it slip away,” said the Alberta skip following a 8-5 loss to Rebecca Atkinson of New Brunswick.
“The girls in front of me played well and I struggled, but I’m OK with that. We skips can have non perfect games and this was mine. It happens and that’s OK. I’ll shake it off. Tomorrow’s a new day.”
Nedohin faces Kelly Scott of B.C. in the afternoon and Kim Dolan of Prince Edward Island in the evening today.
When asked about sitting at 2-3 and how many more losses she can afford, she said it was something she hasn’t looked at.
The loss dropped Nedohin into a six-way tie for sixth place at 2-3 while Atkinson, who defeated Kerry Galusha of the Northwest Territories/Yukon 8-6 in the afternoon, improved to 3-2 and is in a three-way tie for third, back of Team Canada’s Amber Holland and Scott., who are 4-1.
While Nedohin, who shot 66 per cent, was disappointed with her performance Atkinson felt good about the way her team is starting to come together.
“We’re trying to be more consistent and the last few games we’ve brought our level of play up closer to where we want it to be,” she said. “I’m so happy the result tonight went our way. We’re still adjusting to the ice as we’re not fortunate enough to play on ice like this at home. It has so much swing so predicting the curl and break and throwing the right weight, things all teams go through, we’re getting more comfortable with now.”
Atkinson, who calls the game and throws third rocks with Andrea Kelly tossing skip rocks, believes beating Alberta gives the team that much more confidence.
The difference in the game was a three in the fifth end that put New Brunswick up 5-3.
“It gave us some breathing room,” she said. “It was a good setup and Andrea made a nice draw.”
Nedohin was able to get one back in the sixth, but Atkinson counted singles in the seventh and eighth, gave up one in the ninth and drew for one in the 10th.
Atkinson takes on Michelle Englot of Saskatchewan this morning and Heather Smith-Dacey of Nova Scotia in the afternoon.
Englot also sits at 3-2 after beating Ontario’s Stacy Horgan 10-3 in the evening. The win came four hours after she gave up a 7-4 lead and lost 8-7 to Dolan.
“It was nice to get one of those under our belt where we controlled it from start to finish,” said Englot. “It was a great game for us, especially bouncing back from this afternoon.
“We were motivated as we lost one we shouldn’t have. We didn’t want to get our backs to the wall, so it was time to pick it up and come out strong and play strong from start to finish. We’ve had a couple of games where we started slow and finished strong and a couple where we started strong and finished slow.”
Englot jumped on Horgan for two in the first, then stole one in the second. She held a 5-3 lead after five, then put it away with a deuce in the sixth and a steal of three in the seventh.
“We had a little chat following the loss and it’s nice to see we’re solid tonight heading into the morning draw against Manitoba.”
drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com