Canada mixed doubles pair Morris and Lawes win fourth straight in Pyeongchang

Becca and Matt Hamilton of McFarland, Wis. got off to a good start 33 hours before the Games officially began, beating the 2016 world champions representing the Olympic Athletes from Russian Federation team 9-3.

Canada forced the Swiss to take one in the third and got the hammer back, using it to hit and stick for one in the fourth for a 5-2 lead at the break.

“The Chinese team came out great”.

“You want to be up four or five to one, but you have to keep control and keep managing the scoreboard and that’s what we were doing early”.

Ba seemed to suggest with a gesture that there had been a tiny touch on the Swiss stone, though he could then be heard saying “I don’t think I touched it”.

Morris and Lawes downed Switzerland’s Jenny Perrett and Martin Rios 7-2 in six ends on Saturday for their fourth straight win. Switzerland even attempted the power play option in the fifth to no available.

The U.S. team will now hope to salvage a win against China Friday morning, and hope other teams falter to have any chance and making the semifinals.

Switzerland stole a point in the opening end, but it was all Canada from there.

Canada coach Jeff Stoughton said Lawes and Morris appear to have found their A-game just as playoffs now loom.

The U.S. has played better than their record shows.

The Americans outshot China 77 percent to 74 percent for the game.

“Matt and I have done it before”, Becca Hamilton said.

However, the loss eliminates the US from reaching the semifinals.

US will start Friday with a morning match against Switzerland, the lone unbeaten among the eight countries in competition, before taking on Korea, which split its opening games against Finland and China. Three teams are now at 4-1, and the United States can not finish better than 3-4. Unfortunately, the USA team lost to the Canadian team in the second match 6-4. “They’re (Finns) sneaky good; they don’t make every shot, but they make some interesting ones and they make the ones that count”. “We’re just going to have to sharpen up a bit for tomorrow to put a few more wins on the board”. “We had a couple of unfortunate steals there when we had to score”.

Morris is not a fan of current measurement system and he suggested they go back to using measuring tape. Hopefully, we are going to have some tie-breakers in our favor later.

Round-robin play continues at 6:05 a.m. ET (3:05 a.m. PT) with the US facing Canada.

Morris and Lawes are set to meet China (1-1) and Finland (0-2) on Friday.