Victories over Denmark and Germany saw Scotland’s Team Paterson move into the top half of a tightly congested table at the LGT World Men’s Curling Championship on day three of the competition in Las Vegas.
Having lost both matches the previous day, the wins were all the more welcome and skip Ross Paterson said that he and teammates Kyle Waddell, Duncan Menzies and Craig Waddell had all taken satisfaction from the way they settled to their task at a vital stage of the event.
“That was a great day and a really good bounce back,” he said.
“We had to grind both games out a little bit. We had control over both, but saved our best curling for the latter stages. 
“Against Denmark everyone in the team was making big shots at important times down the eighth, ninth and tenth ends, which was particularly pleasing, because in our previous match against Norway we had struggled in the second half of the game.”
While they were never behind in the match against the Danes after once again winning the last stone draw to claim the hammer at the start of the match, it looked as if they might have conceded the upper hand when they were forced to take just one at the seventh end, leaving them just 4-3 in front with the prospect of their opponents having the last shot at two of the three remaining ends.
However, they applied sufficient pressure at the eighth to bring about a blanked end, then upped the ante at the ninth, where Kyle Waddell put them in a strong position with a double takeout, then a perfectly weighted freeze after opposite number Kasper Wiksten had drawn onto the button.
Wiksten then guarded well, but after drawing a second shot into the house, Paterson then took a calculated risk in promoting the Danish guard onto the frozen Scottish stone to lie two shots and Danish skip Tobias Thune was only able to reduce the damage with his attempted raise, allowing the steal and leaving the Scots 5-3 ahead going into the last end.
Having seized the initiative, a flawless final end by the Scottish quartet saw them stay on top of their opponents until, with his final delivery, Paterson’s angled freeze onto the Danish stone that was counting second, left Thune with no real chance to claim the two that would have levelled things.
His failed attempt to salvage the situation produced another steal of two and a 7-3 Scotland win.
After a relatively short turn-around, they made a slightly sluggish start against the Germans after losing the last stone draw to allow their opponents to claim the hammer and establish an early lead with a single at the opening end, then a steal at the second.
Still two down at the midway break, they looked to be in trouble when, following a blanked sixth end, they were forced to take a single at the seventh, however Paterson’s brilliant hit and roll to lie shot and frozen on an opposition stone, with another Scottish stone lying third on the edge of the one foot, earned a steal at the eighth when German skip Sixten Totzek was unable to remove both.
The match was still in the balance, but the Scots shifted things their way when they forced the Germans to take a single at the next, leaving them trailing 4-3 heading down the last and once again, all four found top form when it mattered most, resulting in Totzek facing three Scottish stones as he played his last and when he came up short with his draw attempt a score of three reversed the lead for the first time in the match as a 6-4 win was claimed. 
“We had a bit of a team chat this morning to re-group, focus on the stuff we’re doing well and remind ourselves of the support we need to give each other and that showed in these two matches,” Paterson explained.
“We had to be robust and fight really hard in both games to get the wins. It would have been easy to get frustrated at times when we weren’t making the shots perfectly and individually or collectively were still missing shots.
“The biggest positive for me was that everybody in both games stepped up and made a big shot at a really important time and I think that’s the difference that got us over the line.
“We’re probably going to have to do that a few times this week to have the week that we’re here for.”
Heading into the second match against the Germans, who had won three of their first four to lie second in the standings the Scots had been among nine of the 13 in the competition tied in third place with two wins and two losses, so Paterson is hoping that win that has nudged his men into what is now a five-way tie for second, behind unbeaten Canada, can prove to be a key moment in the competition.
“With the table being as tight as it is, getting that win over Germany has helped us by giving us a winning record, but it really is very tight, so we just have to try to use today as a momentum builder and take that into tomorrow,” he said.
“We’ve got the same draw with back-to-back afternoon and evening games and we know what’s ahead of us with a tough game against the USA, the host nation, to start with, but again we’re just looking purely at ourselves and looking to focus on the great shot-making we’ve produced in these two games while trying to be a little bit more consistent throughout the whole game.
“We can all, individually and collectively, step it up a gear and just try to be a little bit better and if we can do that we’ll all be really pleased. That’s the momentum we want to take into the second half of the 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
19:00 — Scotland v Switzerland
Saturday 9 April
03:00 — Qualification Game 1
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:
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
Scotland – Finland
Wednesday 6 April
Scotland – Czech Republic
Thursday 7 April
Scotland – Netherlands
Scotland – Sweden
Friday 8 April
Scotland – Canada
Scotland – Switzerland
Saturday 9 April
Qualifications games
Semi finals
Sunday 10 April
Bronze medal game
Gold medal game
#curling #WMCC2022
