After opening the tournament with two wins, Team Dunstone has dropped consecutive games and now sits 2-2
It’s been a tough couple of days for Matt Dunstone and his Canadian team at the World Men’s Curling Championship in Ogden, Utah.
After winning a pair of games to open the tournament on Friday, the Dunstone rink, which includes Sault natives E.J. and Ryan Harnden, dropped its second straight game at the nine-day event on Sunday.
Team Dunstone dropped a 9-3 decision to John Shuster’s team representing the United States Sunday, dropping the Canadian record to 2-2 on the event.
Dunstone dropped an 8-3 decision on Saturday night against Ross Whyte of Scotland.
In Sunday’s game, Shuster jumped out to a 2-0 lead with the hammer early and held the Canadian team to a single in the second end before adding two more in the third end.
After Dunstone scored a single to make it a 4-2 game through four ends, Shuster would make a draw for four in the fifth end to break things open.
The teams traded singles in the sixth and seventh ends to cap off the scoring.
“I just think we didn’t adjust well to a different surface, probably quicker and straighter than we’ve seen,” said E.J. Harnden in a media release from Curling Canada. “I didn’t dislike a lot of the throws; it was just us not really trusting what we were seeing. There’s some positives to take away from that and this is a long event. There’s no reason to get down; we have to let this one go and learn from it and then forget about it. This is a tight group, and we believe in one another, and we know what we’re capable of. We’ve been curling at a high level for a long period of time, and there’s no reason why we can’t do that now.”
“The good thing for us, we’re 2-2 and we would all be the first ones to admit that we’re not playing remotely close to what we’re capable of and it all starts with me,” Dunstone added. “We have an opportunity Monday morning to get back to where we need to be.”
Team Dunstone returns to action on Monday morning against Poland’s Konrad Stych before facing Japan’s Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi in the evening draw.
