Tabitha Peterson takes aggressive approach to dethrone Jamie Sinclair in women’s title match of USA Curling Championships
Tabitha Peterson played an aggressive game from the start to knock off three-time U.S. women’s curling champion Jamie Sinclair on Saturday at Eastern Washington University Rec Center.
That was the game plan all week at the USA Curling Championships for Peterson, third Becca Hamilton, second Tara Peterson and lead Aileen Geving.
It worked. Peterson prevailed 7-5 over Sinclair in the women’s final.
“We like to play the first end aggressive anyway,” said Tabitha Peterson, a 30-year-old from Eagan, Minnesota. “So do they, and the way they placed their first rocks, they were going for it, too.”
Peterson came out of the early battle 2-up after a single in the first end and a steal of one in the second.
“If they would have gone into the rings,” she said, “we would have hit, hit, hit and just blanked for hammer in two. They wanted to play, so we said, ‘OK, here we go.’ ”
Peterson held the mental edge, setting Sinclair back on her heels with a 5-ender in the second of the Page 1-2 playoffs Friday and a 9-4 victory for the finals berth. Sinclair earned her spot in the championship run with a 5er of her own and an 11-5 win over Alaska’s Ariel Traxler in the semifinal later that night.
Sinclair, who turns 28 next week, failed to capitalize on key misses by Peterson’s front end. Sinclair threw a bit heavy on a hit-and-roll and gave up the steal in the second to put her team down two.
Like tacticians, though, Sinclair and her third, Cory Christensen, fought back to sit two behind lots of protection in the third. With her final rock of the end, Sinclair tapped off a Peterson rock sitting to the side on the 12-foot and rolled into the button to score three.
Peterson took her chance to recover in the fourth. Her third, Hamilton, peeled a guard on her second to execute a triple takeout and open up the house with a single Peterson rock on the 12-foot. Sinclair didn’t take enough ice on an attempt to freeze to that rock, trying to keep Peterson from an easy draw for two.
Peterson tapped that Sinclair rock back to sit two, and then it turned for Sinclair. She wrecked on the guard to leave Peterson an open hit for three and the 5-3 lead.
“They had a miss and we capitalized, so we had a shot for three,” Peterson said. “That’s how curling is. You have to capitalize on each other’s misses. I feel like both teams did that but we did it a little bit more.”
Both skips seemed to sit back a bit in the fifth, trading rocks and keeping a clean house, with Sinclair mustering only a single point. The two skips traded points in the sixth and seventh ends, and then Peterson settled into a more defensive mode.
She kept Sinclair at bay with peels and takeouts, trying to hold onto the hammer through the final three ends.
Peterson went hard in the ninth, bringing rocks into the house and making it tough for Sinclair to set up a steal. It got dicey late in the end with Sinclair sitting three. Peterson missed on draw weight to freeze to Sinclair’s shot and Sinclair responded with a freeze to her own stone to sit two tight near the button.
Peterson recuperated to draw to the button and take one, giving up in the hammer going home.
All she had to do in the 10th, though, was run her rival skip out of rocks.
“The goal obviously this whole season was to get to this game and leave it all out there” said Hamilton, noting her thirst for a celebratory beer. “We wanted to give 100% and we were lucky enough to come out with a win.”
Peterson and crew turn their sights to the world championships, March 14-22, in Prince George, British Columbia.
Their results at worlds will help determine with Team USA gets a women’s curling berth at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
No pressure, right?
“We’re just going to play our game,” Peterson said. “We have a lot of support staff helping us – coaches, sports medicine, sports psych – we work with them all season. Everyone will be there with us.
“We want a medal.”