A dramatic last-stone draw by skip Eve Muirhead gave Scotland a 7-6 win over Sweden to keep their medal hopes alive at the Le Gruyere European Curling Championships in Champery, Switzerland.
The Courier columnist, who leads her team into the final round-robin game with Finland this morning, said, “What a win! We knew we needed it and I’m so pleased with that.
“We’ve really upped our game against the big teams and this is the part of the week where you really need to do that.”
The Scots started poorly when Muirhead wrecked her last draw in the second end to give Sweden a steal of one.
Muirhead then levelled with a nose-hit in the third end and the Scots moved ahead with a single steal in the fourth.
Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg drew for two points in the fifth end for 3-2 but Scotland scored two in the sixth to re-take the lead. The teams then swapped singles in the next two ends to go into the ninth end with Scotland 5-4 ahead.
Sweden hit back with a two and a tense 10th end came down to Muirhead delivering a well-swept draw inside the four foot ring for the second point that gave the Scots their victory.
The winners of today’s clash with Finland go on to the medal play-off games with the loser eliminated.
Two defeats for David Edwards’ Scottish men means they face a tie-breaker this afternoon to determine which of the two will face the eventual B Division winner for the last available European slot in next year’s World Curling Championship,
The Scots lost 11-10 to Sweden and then went down 7-5 to Italy in their final round-robin game.