Team North America loses lead at Continental Cup

Team North America (Canada) skip Jennifer Jones halts her front end during her draw 4 match against Alina Patz of Switzerland during Continental Cup curling action in Las Vegas on Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. (Michael Burns / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

LAS VEGAS -- Team World bounced back to win two of its three mixed-doubles games in Friday's afternoon draw to pull within one point of Team North America in the overall standings at the Continental Cup curling tournament.

Alina Paetz and Christoffer Sundgren edged Brent Laing and Jennifer Jones 9-7, while Marissa Winkelhausen and Xiaoming Xu cruised past Natalie Nicholson and Tyler George 8-2. Rachel Homan and John Morris were the only North American pair to win in the afternoon, beating Sayaka Yoshimura and Oskar Eriksson 10-6.

Team North America -- winners of the past three Continental Cups -- takes an 8-7 lead into the evening draw.

"This morning was a little disappointing, like taking an empty basket back home," said World captain Andy Kapp of Germany. "But we got two points this afternoon and I'm looking forward to tonight's draw."

It was a challenging afternoon as players continued to adjust to a revised set of mixed doubles rules. The World Curling Federation is experimenting with new rules aimed at improving the fan experience ahead of mixed doubles' debut as an Olympic medal sport in 2018 in PyeongChang, South Korea.

A total of 60 points are available over the four days of competition in traditional team, mixed doubles and skins competition, with the first team to surpass 30.5 points declared the winner.

In the morning's traditional team draw, Homan and her Ottawa rink trounced Ayumi Ogasawara 7-1 as part of a North American sweep. Jones beat Patz 6-4 and Shuster edged Jialiang Zang 6-5 in the day's other early games. The results left North America ahead 7-5 in what is called curling's version of the Ryder Cup.

"We really wanted to win this morning, and we got the job done," Homan said.

Jones and her Winnipeg-based teammates stole three in the fourth end en route to a win over the Swiss rink that defeated them in the gold-medal game of the 2015 world championship.

"That was a tough loss for us to take for a period of time this year, but every time you play a team that you've lost to in a big game, it's always a new game, right?" said second Jill Officer. "And it was just another game that we wanted to go out and play well, and we did."

Shuster's rink -- one of two U.S. squads that are part of the North American team -- took control of its game by scoring three in the sixth end when Shuster made an angle-raise takeout.

"Any time you can come out and get a sweep in a draw, it's huge for momentum and in the standings, and morale in general," Shuster said.