Top seeded Kaitlyn Lawes and her Heather team and defending champion and second seed Kate Cameron’s St Adolphe team have run through the round-robin at the RME Women of the Rings presented by Case IH with perfect 5W-0L records. The two teams finish first in their respective pools.
In the playoffs of the Manitoba Women’s Curling Championship in Rivers, Lawes will play the second place team from the Asham UltraForce pool, Team Beth Peterson (AMCC). Cameron plays the second place team in the Asham pool, the Kristy Watling team from East St. Paul.
Lawes’ first place standing was definite starting her final round robin game but Cameron had to earn first place with a last round win over Team Peterson in a late draw re-match of last year’s final.
Watling’s second place finish came through the tie-breaker last-stone draw process.
A final round Watling win over Sarah Jane Sass (Heather) and a Lawes win over Lisa McLeod (Pembina), left a three-way Sass/McLeod/Watling tie with identical 3W-2L records. The tie-breaker LSD tally eliminated Sass and placed Watling second with McLeod third.
Lane Prokopowich and her young Granite team went on the ice for the late draw Friday knowing they already had third place and a playoff berth. Even with a loss, which did occur in their game with Hailey McFarlane (Rivers), they would be tied with the winner of the Darcy Robertson (Heather) vs Alyssa Calvert (Carberry) game. The game was won by Calvert, giving them both a 2W-3L record but Prokopowich had beaten Calvert earlier in the day and that head-to-head result was the tiebreaker in their pool.
The first round of playoffs, the Lawes vs Peterson and Cameron vs Watling games, will go at 10AM Saturday. The winners advance while the losers drop to elimination games against Prokopowich and McLeod. That second playoff draw is set for 2:30PM Saturday.
