Staff
“The Jackson Four” will be on tour this November in our nation’s capital.
Skip Kathie Jackson and her rink of third Teresa McFayden, second Jacquee Loerzel and lead Leanne Eluik overcame a rough first day to win their final four games and capture the Travelers Curling Club Championship provincial playdowns yesterday in Sault Ste. Marie with an 8-3 win over Jodi Judd of Thunder Bay in the final.
The quartet will head to Ottawa for the Travelers Curling Club Championship national finals from Nov. 23-28.
For Jackson and McFayden, it will be their second trip to the nationals in three years after winning the provincials two years ago with second Lisa Penner and lead Kris Sinclair.
Meanwhile, Loerzel and Eluik will make their first appearance after joining Jackson’s rink this year.
Judd stole a single in the first end of yesterday’s fianl, which appeared to only strengthen Jackson’s resolve.
The Fort skip proceeded to put up a three-spot in the second and then stole one in the third and back-to-back deuces in the fourth and fifth to lead 8-1.
Judd managed one in the sixth and stole one more in the seventh, but ran out of rocks in the eighth to give Jackson the victory.
The Fort crew struggled to a 1-2 mark on Friday, including a 7-3 loss to Judd in its opener and an 8-0 rout in six ends by Amber Sayer (New Liskeard) sandwiched around a 6-5 win over Karen Saaramaki (Geraldton).
With no more room for error if they were going to make it into the top three and advance to the playoffs, Jackson pulled out a heart-stopping 6-5 triumph in her first draw on Saturday over Alisha Bergeron (Espanola) which took a second extra end to decide after Jackson blanked the first one.
The Fort team then defeated Melanie Patry (Coniston) by a 9-6 margin to finish the round-robin tied for second with Sayer at 3-2 behind Judd (5-0).
That set up a Saturday night tiebreaker between Jackson and Sayer, with the Fort skip prevailing 9-5 in six ends after watching a 4-0 lead disappear and then scoring five in the fifth to keep the lead for good.
