Martin vs Leblanc

Team Martin played Team Leblanc last night. Team Martin's of past have not lost to Leblanc in the last 4 attempts, but things start off poorly with Shang losing the toss.

End 1: The situation was as follows going into icky's final stone without last rock.

Icky, playing red stones, attempts to play a double on the two blue stones. The danger was needing to come close to our own guard as wrecking would give a easy shot for 4. We sweep it most of the way down and get it by the guard. Roger is unable to draw for the second point and we escape down by 1.

End 2: After Team Leblanc raises Team Martin's rock to sit shot, icky has a draw to the 8-foot for the deuce. Good sweeping leaves us on the teeline for a 2-1 lead.

End 3: Not sure what happened. Leblanc takes a 3-2 lead.

End 4: A rough end for Team Martin after a series of missed shots. Icky is left with either a draw to the button (around a guard for 1) or a long in-off for up to 2. Thinking the draw looked tough, icky opts for the in-off but doesn't have the right angle at redirect. They take a 2 point lead.

End 5: Team martin responds with 1 by drawing with backing.

End 6: This end looked disastrous. Although we were first and second shot, they were behind the teeline and wide open (and was easily doubleable) and Leblanc had the next 4 stones. Shang was called to guard but misses the line very badly. Fortunately, Pauls attempted double flashed. Icky calls another guard but it again misses the line even more. Paul attempts the same double again, but we catch another break and it flashes. Icky plays a good guard but Leblanc manages to nick one of ours out. Icky plugs up the rest of the hole with a second guard but leaves Leblanc with a long run back for a possible 6. He never had the line and we escape from death to steal 1 and tie it at 4.

End 7: A reasonably good end leaves us sitting 2 behind the teeline. Roger draws for 1 to go up by one with Martin having hammer in the last.

End 8: Team Martin struggles to get rid of Roger's shot rock or opening up the front. Icky plays an attempted runback but fails. Roger guards again, leaving icky with a quiet (hack weight) shot around a really good guard to get to the Leblanc stone to move it just out of the rings for the deuce. From the hack, the shot looked extremely tough as the Roger guard was dwarfing shot rock. A good release but it just scoots by the Leblanc stone, leaving Leblanc with 1 and a 6-4 victory.

The curling stats are as follows (cummulative in brackets):
Combined: 4-8-0 (16-19-2)
Martin Mens: 1-2-0 (2-5-1)
Watson Mens: 1-2-0 (3-4-1)
Martin Mixed: 0-2-0 (3-4-0)
Hirbod Mixed: 1-1-0 (4-3-0)
Szabo Mixed: 1-1-0 (4-3-0)