Staff
Kathie Jackson is on the road again—and she’s pumped to have company along for the ride.
The Fort Frances skip and her team of third Teresa McFayden, second Jacquee Loerzel, and lead Leanne Eluik swept a best-of-three series with Kenora’s Lori Hoppe to win the Travelers Curling Club Championship Region 1 women’s title in Sioux Lookout on the weekend.
On the men’s side, Stratton native Adam Bolen, who also curls out of the Fort Frances club, went 3-1 to finish first in the double round-robin men’s portion of the regional playdowns.
His crew features third Joedy Johnson, second Grant Swire, and lead Johnny Yellowega.
Both rinks now will travel to Sault Ste. Marie for the club provincials March 26-29—the same site where Jackson won the title two years ago to advance to the nationals.
“I hope Sault Ste. Marie is as good to us now as it was then,” said Jackson.
“It’s going to be so nice to have another team coming from our club and have the chance to be fans for each other’s team down there,” she added.
Jackson dumped Hoppe 9-3 in their first game Saturday afternoon, then had to fight back that night to claim a 9-6 victory.
Bolen lost his opener 6-4 to John Cummine (Sioux Lookout) on Friday afternoon, but rebounded to beat Clint Taylor (Atikokan) 7-4 that night.
It was all Bolen in his rematch with Cummine on Saturday afternoon—cruising to a 9-2 win in five ends.
Saturday night’s workload was even less for Bolen as he blanked Taylor 9-0 in just four ends.
All that was left for Bolen to do was wait for the outcome of yesterday’s morning draw, with Cummine only needing to beat the winless Taylor to force a tie-breaker.
But Taylor played the spoiler role to perfection—scoring two in the eighth and final end to pull out a 6-5 triumph and simultaneously punch Bolen’s ticket to the Soo.
The national club championships are slated for Nov. 23-28 in Ottawa.
