Friday Mixed: Martin vs LeBlanc

Team Martin had not faced Roger Leblanc in over a year, since the first draw of last year when we began to catapult ourselves to higher divisions. We finally came down from div B while they moved up from div D. Both teams stood at 2-1. Kathie LeBlanc wins the toss but they decide to take red stones, relinquishing hammer.

End 1: We had 3 rocks in play at one point with a LeBlanc rock at second shot. However, some errant shots by tricky and some lucky breaks by Roger lead to them sitting shot and buried as shown. Icky's first call was to draw but as he went down the ice, he retraced back and decided that running the opposition guard into the opposition shot rock in the house and spilling in was highly makable for the deuce.

Perfection! Team Martin opens with two.

End 2: A very scary looking end after several missed shots from Team Martin that saw LeBlanc storm back with a deuce of their own to tie.

End 3: Another rather scary end, after some missed shots from our side led to icky needing a hit and stick against 3. No problem as we take a 3-2 lead.

End 4: We flirted with disaster here as tricky continued to struggle with his peels and shang also followed it up with missed shots. LeBlanc sat two but we catch a gigantic break. Roger's guard was burnt by their second Paul Westbrook. Facing the situation below, it was decision time. Should icky attempt a risky double on the two red shot stones biting the 4-foot (which was sandwiching our third shot, or should he play some sort of guard to block off access for a third point? The problem with the double was it had to be sooooo precise, needing to hit just off nose so it does not carom off our third shot being sandwiched. Anything outside and we leave Roger a shot for three and possibly 4 if we jam on the wide yellow rock. Anything inside would jam on third shot. In true icky form, he was not about to concede two points without a fight. He ops for the precise double.

Upon release, icky yells "hard" all the way until half way past the far hog line where he calls the sweepers off. The rock curls up nicely, making contact with the first, shaving past the yellow stone, and striking the back red. Both reds go and we leave the yellow in place. Roger's attempted double flashes, leaving us a steal of 1 for a 4-2 lead. Disaster adverted.

End 5: Finally a solid end from the entire team leads to a steal of 3. The only mistake was icky's last which was a guard that he hogged. The guard really wasn't necessary as Roger had a tough shot already.

End 6: Roger massively lucks out his first shot to sit buried after he careened off two rocks. Without hesitation, icky calls the runback.


And it's good! Icky was making all the circus shots today. Roger's final misses and we take another deuce.

End 7: We steal one more and they shake. You can put it in the win column.

Endnotes: Tricky struggled today, perhaps still trying to break in the new shoes, though the problem is more with release than anything from what icky can tell. Ho and shang were on their game. Shang's improvement over the last few weeks has been dramatic after the new shoes. She's been able to bring her hit weight down (she now has control, normal and peel instead of just peel), her draws and guards have been more consistent and her hit line is much improved due to a better release. She's also more attentive in diagnosing what went wrong with a shot. Good work. With the win, it gives us our longest winning streak of the season at 3, and puts us at 3-1 along with Cook. Porter and LeBlanc are 2-2, while the others lag. A win or tie against Cook next week will put us back on the same draw as iszy and ix3y. No possibilities of going down to annoying person level. Even a loss and we still look good as we have wins over Porter and LeBlanc, which is the first tiebreaker.