Staff
They’ve still got it.
Despite their long-time skip being off at Lakehead University as a full-time nursing student, the Hailey Beaudry rink from Fort Frances rekindled their magic of the past several years by capturing the Region 1 junior women’s title here over the weekend.
Beaudry and her crew of third Nicole Hartlin, second Erin Tomalty, and co-leads Tory and Anika Beaudry went 6-0 during the double round-robin event to be one of three rinks in the four-team field to advance to the provincial junior women’s playdowns Jan. 2-5 in Sioux Lookout.
Beaudry clinched top spot with a 9-4 triumph in Saturday’s late draw over Cassidy Romyn (Sioux Lookout), who wound up in second place with a 4-2 record.
Both teams were handed their last wins after the two other Fort-based rinks (1-5) decided to forfeit their final double round-robin games against the older rinks.
Instead, they went right to the third-place tie-breaker to decide the final provincial berth.
Maggie LeMesurier and her short-handed team of Daffni Chabot and Mackenzie Taylor, who entered the competition without a fourth player, looked to be on their way to Sioux Lookout after jumping out to a 5-0 lead after two ends against Ashley Payne and her squad of third Jillian Cousineau, second Chloe Brigham (Atikokan), lead Andrea Schram and fifth Katrina Slomke.
But Payne roared back to score 11 of the next 12 points to eventually come away with an 11-10 win.
The teams played out the 10th end despite Payne running LeMesurier out of rocks, with LeMesurier ending up scoring four to make the final result closer.
In the junior men’s division, meanwhile, Fort Frances skip Chris Silver and his rink of third Kurt McGuire, second Taylor Schotroff (Kenora), and lead Davis Jackson stumbled in the opener of their best-of-three showdown against Zach Warkentin (Keewatin), losing 8-4 in seven ends.
They stormed back with a 5-4 win in Saturday’s late draw to force a Sunday morning showdown for the right to advance to the provincials Jan. 2-5 in Kakabeka Falls.
With a 4-2 lead after six ends in Game 3, though, Silver watched Warkentin score one in the seventh and then steal three in a mistake-filled eighth for the home side to go up 6-4.
Silver, who finished fifth at the provincials last year, managed one in the ninth but was run out of rocks in the 10th to fall 6-5.
