Scotland’s men and women both suffered their first losses of the event on the third day of action at the World Junior Championship in Germany, but both remained in second place in the round-robin tables after Team Henderson bounced back to beat Sweden in the second of their matches.
For Team Carson in the men’s event the meeting with the host nation’s line-up which contained three of the players who won silver medals a year ago after losing to Scotland’s Team Craik in the final, offered a taste of what they might be up against should they reach the play-offs.
They trailed throughout on their way to a 7-5 defeat, but skip Orrin Carson believed they had performed well enough after a sluggish start, to demonstrate that they can contend.
“If we played the first half like we did in the last five ends it probably could have been our game, but so be it and we move on to the next ones tomorrow,” he said. 
“We know they’re a good team. We’ve played them twice this year and we were one all going into that one. Obviously they’re one in front now and I think they deserved it today on the performance over the whole 10 ends.”
Joint second in the standings behind the Germans, who are now the only unbeaten team in the men’s competition, they now face China and Switzerland on day four knowing that they need to regain momentum immediately.
“At the Worlds there are no easy games and all three of us have just come off losses, so we’ll all be as determined as each other to win tomorrow, so we’re expecting two real battles and hopefully we can come out on top,” Carson observed.
Earlier in the day Team Henderson had narrowly failed to maintain their 100 per cent record after going into the final end of their meeting with Canada all square at 6-6 with last stone advantage.
Fay Henderson was, however, left with a testing tap back to secure the win and while she came around guards to make good contact with the Canadian stone that was lying shot inside the four foot, it jammed on another stone and out-counted her shooter.
They responded well in their second match of the day, however, taking early control of their meeting with Sweden, skipped by Moa Dryburgh, the daughter of Scotland’s two-time World Junior champion James.
Having reached the midway break 4-2 up with a text book performance, the Scots allowed their opponents back into it when they let them steal two at the sixth end and their skip was heavy with a draw to the eight foot at the next that would have registered a three to put them comfortably clear. 
They still got their two, though and after stealing at the eighth, then restricting the Swedes to two at the ninth, Henderson was ultimately left with a nose hit with her final shot to clinch the 7-5 win.
“On a two game day if you lose the first game it’s definitely important to bounce back and just keep the momentum going,” she said.
“That puts us on four and one now which is a good position.
“We all played well as a team and managed to read the ice well early on which definitely helped us.
“There were a few spots on the ice that were definitely a bit trickier and it was curling a wee bit more, but we were switched on to that from the start which gave us the advantage.
Their record puts them in outright second position in the standings behind Switzerland, the only remaining unbeaten women’s team, whom they face in their only match of day four.
“It’s a good spot to be in and we’re definitely on track for the target we had for this stage in the round-robin, so it’s a good place to be and hopefully we can just keep building on that,” said Henderson.
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Scotland women
Fay Henderson
Robyn Munro
Holly Wilkie-Milne
Laura Watt
Amy Mitchell (Alternate)
Colin Morrison (Team Coach)
David Aitken (Head Coach)
Scotland men
Orrin Carson
Logan Carson
Archie Hyslop
Charlie Gibb
Scott Hyslop (Alternate)
Ryan Carson (Team Coach)
David Aitken (Head Coach)
Images: WCF/ Alina Pavlyuchik/Stephen Fisher
