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Photo by Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press

Record-high temperatures outside (18 C) and a broken dehumidifier inside the Meridian Centre caused frost to return to the ice sheets. That messed with shots, especially slower-thrown draws. A Homan draw even stopped short of the house early on.

“The ice isn’t great right now,” the 27-year-old said. “Definitely some challenging conditions. But Manitoba played great, and we’re going to have to come out kind of guns-blazing tomorrow and do more of the same from this week.

“There’s so much frost in the house you can’t get anything to go, so I’m sure it will be better tomorrow, they’ll get all of the humidity out and it’ll be a good game tomorrow.”

Manitoba and Ontario so far have been the class of the tournament.

Englot, a 53-year-old Regina resident who’d competed for decades in Saskatchewan’s green-and-white, crossed the provincial line only 12 months ago to pair up with third Kate Cameron, second Leslie Wilson and lead Raunora Westcott out of Winnipeg’s Granite Curling Club.

All four players have been reliably effective here, but Englot in particular has been upbeat, confident and making killer shots all week.

Photo by Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press

“My team played incredible, and set it (all) up,” she said. “We were fortunate in the first end that I had a second chance at making the shot for four. From there, we just wanted to keep counting when had hammer, and make sure we didn’t give up any steals and get into any trouble.”

Had Manitoba lost and Team Canada also finished 9-2, Englot and Co. would have been relegated to the 3-4 Page playoff and thus required two victories to reach the gold-medal game. As it is, a win on Friday against Homan again would send Manitoba directly to the final.