Kathy Isaac (Hamiota) has won the Pharmasave Senior Women’s Championship with a 6-5 extra end win today at Heather Curling Club over Kim Link (East St. Paul).
Link appeared to take control of the game with a two in the sixth end to lead 5-2. The East St. Paul team had a two point lead coming home after Isaac had three stones in a heavily guarded four foot circle in the seventh but could score only one.
Isaac’s final stone draw on the eighth was near buried in the front four foot, forcing Link to play a runback which over curled. A stolen two tied the game. On the extra end, Isaac’s last stone guard left her shot stone partially open up the centre line but Link’s hit attempt didn’t curl up quite enough. It rubbed the shot stone but didn’t remove it, giving up the steal and an 6-5 win for Isaac.
It is the first Manitoba Senior Women’s championship for Kathy Isaac and a second for each of her Hamiota teammates. Third Lynn Sandercock won in 2012 with Lois Fowler while and Sandra Cowling skipped and Sheila Gregory was at third in winning the title in 2016.
The Sunday afternoon final game was a re-match of yesterday’s Page 1-1 Playoff game which Link had won 7-5.
The two teams had earned the entry into the playoffs with perfect 4W-0L records in the ten-team championship which was played in a round-robin, two pools of five format.
Second place in each pool was determined via the tiebreaker process of “who beat who”.
In Link’s Asham Ultra Force Pool, Laurie Deprez (Stonewall) and Deb McCreanor (Ft. Rouge) both finished with 2W-2L records. As Deprez had beaten McCreanor in their preliminary game, Deprez advanced.
In Isaac’s Asham Pool, Marlene Lang (St. Vital) and 2023 champion Joelle Brown (Ft. Rouge) had also tied with 2W-2L records but Lang advanced on the basis of a round-robin victory.
Lang defeated Deprez (11-2) in the Page 2-2 Playoff but lost the Sunday morning semi-final to Isaac (8-2).
The Isaac foursome will represent Manitoba at the Canadian National Seniors Championship in Moncton, NB in December 2024.
