USA's Debbie McCormick team finishes the championships in fourth place after the 11-5 loss, while the Kelly Wood team from Scotland moves on to challenge the loser of Saturday's 1 vs. 2 Page playoff game between Canada and Denmark. The winners of both games will play for the gold on Sunday.

"It's very disappointing," said McCormick (Rio, Wis.), who watched in disbelief as her basically wide open draw for one in the third end crashed on a corner guard and gave the Scots a steal of four.

The end started out OK, with USA putting up the corner guard and second Nicole Joraanstad making a double peel with her first shot. The downhill swing began when vice skip Allison Pottinger missed duplicating a tap back of a rock behind the guard that Scotland vice skip Jackie Lockhart had just executed.

McCormick had drawn the four-foot with her first shot, an attempted freeze that stopped short, and after Wood picked that one out, USA had the same shot to play again.

"I was a little heavier," McCormick admitted. "I was waiting for it to finish, and it never did. I was surprised."

So was Wood. "There was no way I would have imagined that would happen," she said. "There's just so much space there, and there weren't a lot of guards lying about. As soon as she let it go, I knew she knocked it right back. If she had been on the line, she would have never been on the guard. It was strange, but nice."

Instead of a 1-1 game it was 5-0 Scotland, and that's a tough hole to climb out of no matter who you're playing.

"When you get down by five against a good team, it's really hard to come back," said McCormick, whose team faced a similar dilemma in the round robin game against the Scots. USA did rally from a 6-2 deficit in that contest to pull with one by mid-game, but Scotland surged away in the latter half for a 12-6 win.

Scotland led this one 7-1 at the fifth-end break. USA had a potentially decent end set up in the fourth until failing to get a roll behind a corner guard on McCormick's first shot. The Americans were ultimately forced to hit for one against two Scottish counters.

The U.S. women had to play for steals thereafter, and with terrific guard positioning by lead Natalie Nicholson, they did keep things interesting. McCormick drew for first count behind a center blocker with her last rock in the fifth. Wood followed with a pistol of her own, however, tapping McCormick's rock back to score two.

"I felt like we played well," said McCormick. "We all had our draw weight down. We were making some great freezes, and Nat made some great guards. But when you're up like that, you've got nothing to lose."

Wood, on the other hand, said her side talked about needing to concentrate more with such a large lead. "We were thinking, 'Oh, this is going too well. We almost have to stay more focused,'" she said. "Even though we were up, it is so much harder to stay up when you know they're trying to steal for so many ends. They tried really hard to come back, so it's difficult to keep ahead when they're trying anything and everything."

USA did manage to pick up a deuce in the sixth end, which could have been a three had Wood not made a double with her last shot. The Scots came through time and again when they needed to, and although the overall shooting percentages were similar-84 percent for Scotland to 83 percent for USA-the telling difference was in the back end. Wood and Lockhart shot 89 and 81 percent, respectively, compared with 72 percent for McCormick and 74 percent for Pottinger.

The Scots kept USA at bay by drawing for one in the seventh, and kept the pressure on in the eighth, when McCormick reeled in the corner of the button to pick up two and make the score 8-5.

With the Americans going for broke in the ninth, Lockhart made a runback double takeout to diffuse a growing threat. McCormick tried to make a freeze for first count with her last shot, but it hit a fast track and went all the way through the house, giving Wood an easy draw for three to ice the game.

"I'm proud of the way the girls hung in there all week," said McCormick, on the verge of tears. "It's just very disappointing, especially when you get so close, like last year." McCormick, whose team in Aomori included fifth Maureen Brunt, skipped USA to the silver medal in 2006, and to the first-ever women's gold medal for her country at the worlds in 2003.

Wood is looking forward to taking home her first medal in six or seven world and world junior championship tries. (The loser of the last qualifier for the finals claims the bronze.) "We're just going to try to enjoy the rest of the games and keep playing at the standard we're playing at. We play much better when we're just relaxed."

The 1-2 playoff game is at 3 p.m. Saturday. The second qualifier is at 8 p.m., and the gold medal game at 2 p.m. Sunday. (All times local, 13 hours ahead of EST.)

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USA line scores:
USA 000 102 020 x 5
*SCO 014 020 103 x 11
*designates last-rock advantage in first end

For more information: Rick Patzke, USA Curling, rick.patzke@usacurl.org.