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SAINT JOHN, N.B. -- The skips voice rasped and there was fatigue in her face. Rachel Homan and her Ottawa Curling Club team were ready to put their feet up for an evening and a morning at the Ford World Womens Curling Championship after three straight wins, one of them a white-knuckler. "Oh my god, so ready. I cant wait to not curl for 24 hours," Homan said Wednesday. "I feel like its midnight, so it will be nice to get a break." The Canadians arrived at a break in the schedule tied atop the standings with Switzerlands Binia Feltscher at 8-1. The Canadians reverted to their custom of both taking the lead and finishing a game early in a 10-3 win over South Koreas Ji-sun Kim, who shook hands after eight ends. But Canada went the distance in the morning draw. They stole three points over the final two ends to rescue a 7-5 win over Germanys Imogen Oona Lehmann. That was the first time Homan threw her final stone at the world championship and just the second time Canada played a 10th end in Saint John. Theyd beaten Scotland the previous evening and were back on the Harbour Station ice in the morning. "It was a long haul, three games in a row on not much sleep and a big grind this morning against Germany," Homan said. Homan, third Emma Miskew, second Alison Kreviazuk and lead Lisa Weagle headed to dinner with family members feeling confident about their position. Canada concludes the round robin Thursday against China and Sweden. "Two great teams," Miskew said. Swedens Margaretha Sigfridsson and Russias Anna Sidorova were both 7-2 followed by Chinas Liu Sijia and South Korea tied at 6-3 and Allison Pottinger of the U.S. at 5-4. Scotlands Kerry Barr and Anna Kubeskova of the Czech Republic were 2-7 with Germany, Latvias Evita Regza and Denmarks Madeleine Dupont at 1-8. The top four teams in the preliminary round advance to the Page playoff. Ties for fourth will be solved by tie-breaker games. The countries with the two best records meet in one playoff game Friday with the winner advancing directly to Sundays gold-medal game. The loser drops to Saturday afternoons semifinal to meet the winner of a morning playoff between the third and fourth seeds. "We have our fate in our own hands," Homan said. "Weve got to win out and see what happens with everybody else." The Canadians, all 28 years old or younger, couldnt hide their pleasure at the prospect of sleeping in Thursday morning. They intended to stop in at the tournament party room before bed Wednesday "because theres a band there Signal Hill that we like," Miskew said. "Theyve come to Ottawa and we usually go and watch them in Ottawa." Canada scored three points in the fourth and stole three in the eighth versus South Korea. Pyeongchang, South Korea, is the host city of the 2018 Winter Olympics. Kim is among the countrys female curlers getting fast-tracked to compete. The 26-year-old skipped South Korea to fourth at the 2012 world championship in Lethbridge, Alta. She beat Canadas Heather Nedohin in a playoff game, but lost the semifinal and lost the bronze-medal rematch to Nedohin. Kim threw third stones against Homan with Un-chi Gim, her lead in Lethbridge, throwing fourth stones. With the score tied 2-2, the South Koreans played conservatively in the fourth end by putting up guards early on a counter on the button. But Miskews well-executed draw around a guard forced them to chase. South Koreas poorly-placed draws opened the door for Canada to plant more counters around the button. Homan had an easy tap for three points and a 5-2 lead in front of 1,726 at Harbour Station. "Not good," Kim said. "We were a little nervous." Canada recovered from errors against Germany to grind out a win. The Germans led 5-4 heading into the ninth, when Homan and Lehmann shifted momentum back and forth with misses. Lehmann overthrew an attempted double takeout with hammer to leave Canada shot rock for a steal of one. Miskew put guards in front of a Kreviazuk draw to the button in 10th and German third Corinna Scholz missed an attempted hit and roll behind cover. Homan struggled with draws in the earlier ends, but she had it solved by the 10th as she drew in to stack two Canadian counters on the button. Lehmann cleared just one and Homan buried a draw behind a guard to lie two again. The German skips attempt to follow her didnt curl enough. "Youve got to be confident and believe you can steal because theres no other way, theres no other option," Homan said. "It was just tough out there. We werent quite reading things right. There were a lot of uncharacteristic misses. We just tried to figure out our rocks and our lines. We just had to keep playing a little bit better each end and hope for a few lucky breaks and we made it out in the end." Jahleel Addae Jersey . Tokarski, a somewhat controversial choice -- with his 10 games of NHL experience and all -- to replace an injured Carey Price in Game Two had a night to remember, turning back a Rangers team that was dominating play from the get-go, outshooting the Canadiens 14-4 in the first period and 37-25 overall. Russell Okung Jersey . Next years tournament is also within sight for Bosnia-Herzegovina, which has never played in a World Cup, but Cristiano Ronaldo looks destined for the playoffs with Portugal after a night when the qualifying picture in the nine groups became much clearer. http://www.authenticchargersnflfansmall ... sey.aspx... maybe even more than that. Maybe all season I have to take a few blows. Melvin Gordon Jersey . Just as the meeting was beginning, Major League Baseball unveiled Rule 7.13, an experimental rule for the 2014 season aimed at eliminating what the league calls “egregious” runner/catcher collisions at home plate. Drew Kaser Jersey . Indeed, must be among the greatest challenges in all of sports. The pressure he applies, from set to set, game to game, point to point, shot to shot.BROOKLYN - With just over four minutes to go in the third quarter, Amir Johnson sat on the bench, wincing in pain as he watched the game and, in effect, his teams season slip away. That seemed like an appropriate time to get a head start on the Raptors playoff obituary. Their first-half onslaught had evaporated, the 17-point lead was no more and Johnson, like Kyle Lowry, was battling foul trouble and a myriad of ailments. At that point the momentum, if you believe in such things, belonged to the hosting Brooklyn Nets. This upstart Raptors team had been in similar situations throughout the season - fighting for their lives, backs up against the wall - but, tied going into the fourth quarter of a critical Game 4, this would be their biggest and most revealing test yet. They had a new audience, a brighter spotlight, a bigger stage and 12 minutes to prove something that they themselves already knew. "Everybody has something on their body that definitely hurts," said Johnson, who injured his knee in a failed attempt to draw a charge on the Nets Paul Pierce, "but we keep playing, we keep fighting. Its not the time to hold back now. Weve got to keep going." The Raptors held Brooklyn without a field goal for the final six minutes, without a point for the last five and in doing so they showed more character than they had at any point in this series. "Thats just us, man," DeMar DeRozan said after scoring a team-high 24 points in the Raptors scrappy 87-79 win on Sunday, tying their best-of-seven opening round series up at 2-2. "Were definitely resilient, were not going to give up until the games over. Were going to fight through." Just as things were at their most bleak - Lowry had picked up his fifth foul and Johnson, still on the bench, was also saddled with five - the Raptors got serious. Slightly out of character, DeRozan drew a charge, then he took another. Was that a first? "Nah, I dont think so," the all-star guard said with a smirk on his face as Lowry, sitting next to him, chuckled. "I hope its not." Then Lowry, throwing caution to the wind, reached in and poked the ball away from Pierce. Johnson followed suit and in a familiar scene - one that earned him his fifth foul and a sore knee earlier - stepped in to take the charge. Both Lowry and Johnson were one foul away from spending the rest of the game watching from the sidelines, one hit to the knee away from spending the rest of the night on the trainers table. Neither player seemed willing to allow his team to lose. "Theyre fighters," said Jonas Valanciunas. "Theyre soldiers. They go on the court anyway. So its good when you have those types of guys on your team." Everyone is dealing with bumps aand bruises to some degree at this point in the season.dddddddddddd Who wasnt limping out there tonight, Valanciunas was asked. "Julyan Stone," the young centre said with a smile. But there was Lowry, limping up and down the court between possessions, lying next to the bench to stay loose when he wasnt in the game. He had tweaked his reoccurring right knee injury early in Game 3, on top of all the nicks hes accumulated over a long season, but he gutted it out again. Where would his team be without him? "We would have probably got in a fight if I tried to take him out of the game," coach Dwane Casey joked. "Hes dealing with a lot right now and he came through with flying colours. He fought through foul trouble, a little bit of adversity throughout the game and still came through.” Lowry scored 12 of his 22 points in the second half and once again, with the game on the line, his team resembled their point guard, their leader, their best player. "I am not surprised at all that Kyle was limping around, hes a warrior, hes everything to this team," said Chuck Hayes. "The guy gives it his all, we just feed off of him. Then we tease him about it after, hes going to have probably every ice bag in here on his body." "We dont give up man, were some fighters," Hayes continued. "We play like the underdog, we were the underdog probably all year, including this series. I dont know, we just go out there and play for each other." Go ahead, underestimate them, disrespect them and count them out. They feed off it. If respect is earned in the postseason, perhaps the Raptors are starting to turn heads. "We understand that this is a group thats not going to back down, thats not going to give up," Pierce said after the game. "Theyve earned a lot of peoples respect around the league. Just because you dont have a lot of playoff experience doesnt mean youre not a good team. You can learn on the fly." Theyve done just that, now its a whole new ball game. The Raptors will return to Toronto and their raucous crowd at the Air Canada Centre after reclaiming home-court advantage for what has become a best-of-three set, beginning with Wednesdays Game 5. Have they played their best basketball? "No," Lowry and DeRozan answered in unison, but there is a growing sense of belief in the room coinciding with an ambiance of nervousness that spread throughout Barclays Center as Toronto hit back on Sunday. The Raptors may not be in over their heads after all. "Were on a mission," Casey said. "Were not just here trying to win a game. We want to make sure we stay poised, stay focused on our business. 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