The U.S. Women’s curling team lost its round-robin match to Great Britain Tuesday by the lopsided score of 12–3.
Even though t he U.S. women had the hammer (last shot in the end) through the first two ends, they were unable to score a point—the UK team stole one in each end. Finally the U.S. got on the board in the third with a single point but the UK team came back to score seven in the next end—about as high a score as a team could possibly get with eight stones.
U.S. skip (team captain) Erica brown seemed to be reacting to UK strategy rather than taking control of the sheet, and she and vice-skip Debbie McCormack missed some key shots to give up any advantage they might have gained by luck or the rare bad shot by the British squad.
The U.S. team didn’t play terribly, but the UK squad played a superb match, threading through multiple guards to score and dominating the house (scoring zone) with well-planned, well-placed shots.
The entire U.S. teams looked deflated by the start of the fifth end, but they didn’t give up. With one rock each left, the Americans had three scoring rocks in the house, while England had none. UK skip Eve Muirhead then knocked two aside to lie shot-rock (nearest to the center,) forcing Brown to make a perfect take-out to score two—and she did, cutting the gap to six, 9–3.
The UK came back in the sixth and what would be the final end with the hammer and continued to dominate strategy. With one rock each, U.S. skip Brown tried to run out a UK stone but instead froze to it, leaving UK skip Muirhead an easy two—or a tough three. Muirhead made an excellent shot, knocking out two U.S. stones to take the score to 12–3. The U.S. team promptly conceded.
The U.S. team lost to Russia 9–6 earlier in the day.
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