Team Scotland made a gallant bid to salvage their LGT World Men’s Curling Championship bid in the latter stages of their play-off encounter with the USA, but ultimately came up just short against their hosts in Las Vegas.
Having started the second half of the match 5-1 down after allowing their opponents to steal shots at three of the five ends played to that point, Ross Paterson, Kyle Waddell, Duncan Menzies and Craig Waddell battled back bravely in the second half, claiming two successive steals of their own at the eighth and ninth ends to reduce the leeway to a single shot.
However USA skip Korey Dropkin was not made to play his final stone when Ross Paterson’s attempt to run a Scottish guard into the house, remove the counting American stone and lie three, narrowly failed and left a final scoreline of 6-4. 
“That was a massive disappointment,” said Paterson, who has been playing skip stones while Kyle Waddell has been calling the shots.
“Unfortunately I’ve got to take most of the responsibility in the first half, just missed shots that you can’t afford to miss at any level.
“I felt good going into the game, I just feel that we’ve struggled on that particular sheet of ice this week and it was the same again.
“It is very tricky, not forgiving at all, but I’m not trying to make excuses. There were shots getting missed that you don’t usually miss and other factors maybe contribute;
“The boys played great. I’m proud of them for what they’ve done this week in stepping up and playing brilliantly throughout the week and in that game they played well,
“I just didn’t make enough of the key shots in the first half and gave up steals which you just can’t.”
He acknowledged that the tone for that first half performance had been set at the opening end, which they had gone into with last stone advantage having finished above the Americans in the standings in fourth place overall at the end of the round-robin stages.
“At the first end they had us under a little bit of pressure and we didn’t make any run backs,” he explained.
“We were just getting a feel for the ice and my last stone just over-curled slightly.
“It was a tough shot for one, but it was one we had to take on and we felt that the chances we had in the first half, we didn’t take any. We did have plenty and it was just missed chances that gave them that lead.
As they took stock at the midway break, however, they drew encouragement from what had happened the previous day when they had led Switzerland 5-1 of what was effectively a knockout match at the end of the round-robin stages and extended that to 6-1, only for the Swiss to battle back and take it to the last end.
“We saw when we played Switzerland yesterday that with the way the ice is just now no lead is a safe lead and we had a really gutsy second half to put ourselves in a really good position at the last end,” Paterson observed.
“There were a couple of big moments, though. 
“We were drawing for two at the seventh end and the boys burnt my stone which was just unfortunate. There’s no blame in that, they were trying to get it on the T-line, but that’s a one instead of a two.
“Then we’ve clawed back a couple of steals by playing great curling, drawing to perfection, which is something we’ve done very well and at the last end I had a run back to make him face three.
“It’s over-curled by a couple of millimetres and it’s just missed the shot in the rings which would have left him with a tough shot and it feels like that summed up the game a wee bit.”
As the only member of the quartet to have played in a World Championships previously, Paterson reckoned that once the initial hurt has eased, they will be able to reflect positively on much of what they achieved over the week.
“We’ve come here for a medal and we’ve not got it, so right now it’s sore and I feel like I want to take most of the responsibility for that because I feel as if I’ve let the boys down in that first half and I wish we could go back and start again,” he said.
“That’s curling! You can win by millimetres and you lose by millimetres, but today I feel I’ve not done myself justice.
“The guys played great, had a great game and had a great week, so there’s more for us to be proud of than anything else.
“On another day we could easily have won that game and we’d have seen what happened in the semi-final, but we’re not playing for a medal now and we’ve got to be disappointed with that.”
“It’s been fantastic having our families here this week. They’ve given us amazing support all week through thick and thin.
“It’s been great to see fans back in the arena as well, so we just need to use this as experience and build on that and use it to drive us to go forwards and be a better team because of this week.”
Team Scotland
Ross Paterson (vice-skip)
Kyle Waddell (skip)
Duncan Menzies
Craig Waddell
Euan Kyle (alternate)
Broadcast games on The Curling Channel in partnership with Recast
Tuesday 5 April
22:00 — Scotland v United States
Friday 8 April
17:00 — Scotland v Canada
Saturday 9 April
03:00 — Scotland v Switzerland
Saturday 9 April
22:00 — Qualification Games
22:00 — Qualification Game 2
03:00 — Semi-final 1
03:00 — Semi-final 2
Sunday 10 April
19:00 — Bronze medal game
00:00 midnight — Gold medal game
Schedule and results: 7W-5L
Saturday 2 April
Scotland – Italy 5-4
Sunday 3 April
Scotland – Korea 6-9
Scotland – Norway 4-7
Monday 4 April
Scotland – Denmark 7-3
Scotland – Germany 6-4
Tuesday 5 April
Scotland – USA 9-7
Scotland – Finland 10-5
Wednesday 6 April
Scotland – Czech Republic 6-0
Thursday 7 April
Scotland – Netherlands 4-5
Scotland – Sweden 2-8
Friday 8 April
Scotland – Canada 6-8
Scotland – Switzerland 9-7
Saturday 9 April
Qualifications games
Scotland - USA 4-6
Switzerland - Italy 4-10
Semi finals
Canada – USA 8-5
Sweden – Italy 8-4
Sunday 10 April
Bronze medal game
Italy v USA 13-4
Gold medal game
Canada v Sweden 6-8
#curling #WMCC2022
