Ontario fourth Rachel Homan calls out to the sweepers while playing Team Wild Card 3 at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, in Kamloops, B.C., Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
OAKVILLE, Ont. – Rachel Homan defeated Kerri Einarson 9-7 to claim the PointsBet Invitational title on Sunday.
Homan used a three-point ninth end to break a 6-6 tie and eventually win the women’s final.
The victory earned Homan’s team $50,000. Homan missed her side’s season-opening win at the Saville Shootout in Edmonton in September while she spent time with her now five-week-old son Briggs, with Heather Nedohin standing in as the skip.
“I guess my team can win with any skip,” joked Homan. “The team is firing, and we’re just going to try to keep getting better with every game. Heather was an awesome super-spare for us, and we just continued that on.”
“Rachel is amazing – I’m continually in awe of her,” added second Emma Miskew. “And the team played great; it was nice to have all of us back.”
After a blank opening end, it was top seed Einarson who notched three points in the second to take an early lead. Down 4-2 entering the fifth, though, Homan’s second-seeded squad took their first lead with a three-point end.
After Homan bumped the lead to 6-4 in the seventh, Einarson knotted the contest with two in the eighth. Down 9-6 following the ninth end, however, Einarson was only able to notch one point in the 10th and final end.
“We came out firing early, and in the middle ends I had some unfortunate bad luck on a couple of mine,” said Einarson, whose team earned $26,000 as the runner-up. “Not much you can do about that.”
In the men’s final later on Sunday, Reid Carruthers scored three in the 10th end to tie Matt Dunstone 8-8, then had a steal of one in the 11th to win it 9-8.
The fifth-seeded Carruthers scored a single in the first end, two in the fifth, two more in the seventh and then pulled off the three in the 10th en route to victory.
The third-seeded Dunstone scored two in the second end, singles in the third and fourth, counted two in the sixth and eighth and appeared headed for victory before Carruthers’ incredible comeback.
The PointsBet Invitational is the first Season of Champions event of the season.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 1, 2023.
