Homan off and rolling at 2-0 at KIOTI National

Ottawa's Rachel Homan (photo: Anil Mungal, GSOC) won 7-1 over Christina Black of Halifax to stay undefated after Day 2 at Grand Slam National in Pictou County, Nova Scota. Homan with Tracy Fleury at third, Emma Miskew and Sarah Wilkes on the front end are not playing a lot so far this season, but when they do play, they win. Holding a 16-2 record now on the season, Homan with Heather Nedohin filling in for Rachel won the Saville shootout and then the PointsBet Invitational, going undefeated through both events. Homan finish 2-2 at the HearingLife Tour Challenge three weeks ago in Niagara Falls but missed the playoffs after finishing near the bottom of the shootout tiebreaker rankings. Homan blanked the first end against Black, then scored three points in the second end. After Black scored a single in the second end, Homan scored one in the third, stole one in the fourth and two more in the fifth end for early handshakes. In their opening game on Tuesday, Homan stole two in the first end on Kate Cameron of Winnipeg. Cameron scored two in the second end, with Homan get two more back. Homan forcced Cameron to a single in the fourth end, getting another deuce back themsevles to lead 6-3. A steal put Homan up by four after six ends with Cameron scoring two in the seventh end to close the gap, but it wasn't enough as Homan ran Cameron out of rocks. Homan holds a career record of 28 wins and 13 losses in 8 appearances at the KIOTI National, winning in 2018, and 2015. Homan faces Kerri Einarson of Gimil, Manitoba at 3 pm Eastern Time, then finishes round-robin action at 7 pm ET on Friday against Sweden's Anna Hasselborg. The format for round-robin play at the Grand Slams features a four game guarantee for the teams, who are then seeding in to 4 separate pools to balance out each block. Teams in Pool A play all their games against teams in Pool D, creating a balanced draw for every team in the field as everyone plays a 1 seed, 2 seed, 3 seed and 4 seed from a pool. Pool C plays against Pool D teams. The Grand Slams have eliminated tiebreaker games this season, and instead are using the pre-game draw to the button scores to break ties. With the increased impotance place upon these shootouts, teams now each player will throw two shots and count their best shot towards the team total. Play continues through Sunday with the women's final held at 2:30 pm ET. Sportsnet begins broadcast on Thursday, until then check out some free games on CurlingZone's Youtube channel: