Martin vs Varsity

Team Martin finally got another shot at the Varsity team. They brought in super spare Zebchuk to play second, a big improvement on their current second, lead or fifth. Meanwhile, iggy was running on 1 hour of sleep and almost bailed on us today. Playing on the so-called "tv sheet" (sheet 3), iggy wins the toss for our fans shang and laurat.

End 1: There were some good and bad shots on both sides. Icky's first was an awful takeout that he got started inside and flashed. Jon's attempted draw missed. All of this left icky a draw to the 4-foot for the deuce. Success! 2-love.

End 2: We play another solid end. combined with some errant shots from their third, icky throws with perfect sweeping to sit in the top 8, blocking off any draw or hit on the shooter for shot. Jon has to throw a hit and get a slight inside roll for the single. He gets it outside and wrecks on his own rock, and almost flukes out a jam on our rock to score, but it slides pass it all and we steal a 4 to take a 6 point lead.

End 3: Icky makes a double on his first to sit 2. The double was slightly fluky as we wanted the straight back but instead we got it across the face. Jon's first misses, leaving icky another draw to the top 8 to cut off everything. We get full 12 on solid sweeping again. Jon has a chance at a double to score but he jams, leaving icky with the single. 7-0! Could the shutout be on???

End 4: We play another great end and icky again gets the perfect weight and sweeping to sit one on the top 8 to block the path and sit 3. Jon has a better chance this time to score, drawing wide to catch the 4-foot to get on the board with a single.

End 5: Ix3y makes a nice double this end, but a guard was still there and they draw around. Icky is left with a draw to the 4-foot for the single. Great weight but he gets it slightly wide and it hangs and just clips the guard. Varsity takes one to close the gap to 7-2.

End 6: A couple of errant peels by ix3y (with some unlucky non-runback results) leaves Varsity with guards and in reasonable shape, but iggy is able to make all the hits. Jon's first picks (which neutralizes icky's pick earlier in the game). Icky puts another perfect shot to block the path on the top 8-foot with some more perfect sweeping. Jon's last, facing 4 was to draw wide through a port to catch a piece of the 4-foot. He makes an incredible shot to sit 1 buried. Icky's final was to run back the shot he just threw, which he had planned to do if Jon managed to get one in. That's why it was called top 8 so any runback or tap would be short, only 5-feet of separation. Icky throws it good. Icky calls them on as does iggy. Iggy calls them off, but then icky calls them on again. It was a battle between icky's "haaarrrrds" which got more panicky and iggy's "whoas". In the end, the runback is made to perfection and we sit 5. We take it 12-2.

Endnotes: The team was outstanding today. The score looked lopsided but Varsity didn't play bad at all. They made some mistakes and we capitalized on them all. Icky threw well all game (except for the first rock) and the sweeping was absolutely superb as the front-end got all my rocks in nearly the perfect spot. With the win, we are 4-0 this draw and we believe that should be enough to guarantee us a spot in the A playoff. We've also outscored our opponents 37-9 this draw. In fact, we've outscored our opponents in every draw this year (even the ones where we went sub-500), for a total of 131 points for and 85 against (a net of 46 points, which is more than 50% of the total points opponents have scored). We also have 15 forfeited ends to our credit and none against. Every win except for one this year has been by at least 4 points, and every loss except for one has been close (within 2 points coming home). This seems to indicate that when we are playing well, we are nearly unbeatable, and when we play mediocre, we are still contenders. Next up, our third meeting with Vicki this season.