Scotland’s Team Morrison ended their LGT World Women’s Curling Championships in Sweden with two battling displays, but ultimately suffered a 7-6 defeat to defending champions Switzerland and a 10-7 loss to Turkiye.
It was a final day of round-robin action that in many ways summed up the week for Rebecca Morrison, Gina Aitken, Sophie Sinclair, Sophie Jackson and Jen Dodds as they stayed in contention to the final ends of both matches without managing to add to their haul of wins.
Opening the day against Silvana Tirinzoni’s Swiss team that was on its way to heading into the play-offs with a perfect record of 12 wins as they aim to claim a fourth successive World Championships title, they showed their determination from the off. 
A blanked opening end was followed by the Scots forcing their opponents to take a single at the second and even after they conceded a three at the fourth end to fall 4-1 behind, they stuck to their task, scoring twos at the seventh and ninth ends to level the match at 6-6 going into the final end when Alina Paetz had to make a delicate and difficult raise with her final stone to maintain Switzerland’s 100 per cent record.
“We had a great game against Switzerland this morning and almost came away with a win, but it was pretty disappointing to have another tight loss, but obviously great to take the world champions to the last stone,” said skip Morrison.
In their evening match they were always looking to make up lost ground after conceding a two at the opening end then being forced at the second, before Turkiye scored a three at the fifth end to take a 6-2 advantage into the midway break.
The Scots responded with a three of their own at the sixth, but a Turkish steal at the eighth end gave them breathing space as they moved 8-5 up and while Team Morrison claimed a two at the ninth end to test them, opposing skip Dilsat Yildiz produced a well judged take out with the final stone to round off the win.
“It wasn’t our best game, so it’s a bit disappointing to finish on that note, a bit of a downer at the end of our championship, but that’s life,” said Morrison.
“It’s been a tough week, but we know that if we come back next year we’re going to have learned so much from this experience.” 
The skip had been making her Women’s World Championship debut, while of the starting quartet only lead Sophie Jackson had played more than the solitary game at this level following their early withdrawal from last year’s event when COVID struck their camp.
Following the retirement of most of last year’s Olympic gold medal winning team, this had consequently been an important development opportunity and British Curling’s Executive Performance Director Nigel Holl expressed satisfaction with what had been learned in the course of a challenging week.
“There have been some disappointing results, but overall some pleasing performances and we were creating opportunities throughout,” he observed.
“It’s been a valuable experience, with some real positive signs to build on after so many close games and we know that we’ll come back stronger from this.
“It was a great job from our players and our coaches. We’re really proud of the team and there have been some great learnings for all of us this week.”
After the full round-robin schedule was completed, Norway joined Switzerland in heading directly into the semi-finals as one of the top two, while Canada will meet Japan and Italy will face hosts Sweden in the first round of the play-offs.
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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 7-9
Session 5 – 18.00
Scotland – Japan 8-9
Day Three – Monday 20 March
Session 7 – 13.00
Scotland – Korea 4-6
Session 8 – 18.00
Scotland – Canada 8-9
Day Four – Tuesday 21 March
Session 10 - 13.00
Scotland – Norway 6-9
Session 11 – 18.00
Scotland – Italy 6-7
Day Five – Wednesday 22 March
Session 13 – 13.00
Scotland – USA 8-7
Day Six – Thursday 23 March
Session 15 – 08.00
Scotland – Sweden 6-8
Session 16 – 13.00
Scotland – New Zealand 8-3
Day Seven – Friday 24 March
Session 18 – 08.00
Scotland – Switzerland 6-7
Session 20 – 18.00
Scotland – Turkiye 7-10
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
Images: WCF/Jeffrey Au
