Scotland’s Team Morrison made the ideal start to the LGT World Women’s Curling Championships in Sweden when they defeated Germany 12-5 with an end to spare in their opening round-robin match.
The Scottish quartet of Rebecca Morrison, Gina Aitken, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson lost the draw shot challenge, but otherwise made the perfect start to their encounter with their vastly more experienced opponents as they stole at the opening end, then claimed further steals of two at the next two ends to open up an early 5-0 lead.
The Germans responded by claiming a three at the fourth end, but the Scots managed the game well from that stage onwards, before wrapping things up with a four at the ninth.
“Those first few ends we were really on top of our draw weight and getting our stones into good places and putting a lot of pressure onto Daniella Jentsch,” said skip Rebecca Morrison.
“At the first few ends she almost didn’t have a shot a lot of the time because we really piled it on.
“We had a few loose misses at the fourth end and they came close to clawing their way back, but at the half-time break we just talked about what we could do a little better and we came back strong again.”
It was a morale boosting victory for Morrison in particular, since she was the only member of her team who had never taken to the ice at a World Championships previously, having been one of the first to succumb last year when an outbreak of COVID in their camp ultimately forced them out of the event after they had played just one match.
All the more so because, on their way to claiming a bronze medal at this season’s European Championships, they had suffered a heavy defeat to the Germans in the round-robin stages.
“We’ve got a lot of respect for the German team, having played them at the Europeans and on tour this season, so it was great to get and it gives us a lot of confidence going into the other tough games that we’ve got coming up, especially tomorrow against other teams we’ve played this season and not quite got those wins over yet.”
They now meet two of this season’s form teams on the second day of action believing that they are ready to demonstrate their capacity to be in the mix for medals this week.
“We’re expecting both Denmark and Japan to play brilliantly tomorrow,” Morrison acknowledged.
“Denmark won the Europeans and Japan won the Pan-Continental, so we know we’ve got two tough games tomorrow, but I think that if we come out firing like we did today we stand as good a chance as anyone.”
The LGT World Women’s Curling Championships is taking place in Sandviken from March 18-26.
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Schedule
Day One – Saturday 18 March
Session 2 – 18.00
Scotland – Germany 12-5
Day Two – Sunday 19 March
Session 3 – 08.00
Scotland – Denmark
Session 5 – 18.00
Scotland – Japan
Day Three – Monday 20 March
Session 7 – 13.00
Scotland – Korea
Session 8 – 18.00
Scotland – Canada
Day Four – Tuesday 21 March
Session 10 - 13.00
Scotland – Norway
Session 11 – 18.00
Scotland – Italy
Day Five – Wednesday 22 March
Session 13 – 13.00
Scotland – USA
Day Six – Thursday 23 March
Session 15 – 08.00
Scotland – Sweden
Session 16 – 13.00
Scotland – New Zealand
Day Seven – Friday 24 March
Session 18 – 08.00
Scotland – Switzerland
Session 20 – 18.00
Scotland – Turkiye
Day Eight – Saturday 25 March
Qualification Games – 09.00
Semi Finals – 15.00
Day Nine – Sunday 26 March
Bronze Medal Game – 09.00
Gold Medal Game – 14.00
Team Morrison
Rebecca Morrison
Gina Aitken
Sophie Sinclair
Sophie Jackson
Jen Dodds (alternate)
Nancy Smith (Team Coach)
Greg Drummond (Coach)
Nigel Holl (Team Leader)
#curling #WWCC2023
Image: WCF/Jeffrey Au
