Einarson and Overton-Clapham headed to curling playoffs

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This article was published 23/01/2016 (3836 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BEAUSEJOUR, Man. – It’s been a wild ride, but Kerri Einarson and Cathy Overton-Clapham are headed to the playoffs at the Manitoba women’s curling championships.

Einarson clinched the top finish in her Extreme Force round robin group on Saturday morning, with a 9-5 extra-end win over Darcy Robertson, who had already been eliminated from contention.

The win solidified her berth in Saturday evening’s 1-vs-1 Page playoff game, which will be televised at 6 p.m. on Sportsnet One. She will face top seed Kristy McDonald, who with one round robin game left to play has already wrapped up the number-one place in her Asham round robin group.

Meanwhile, it’s a dream finish for Overton-Clapham, in what she says will be her last provincials. Overton-Clapham wasn’t even planning to play this season, but eventually agreed to serve as skip and mentor for a young team including third Briane Meilleur, second Katherine Doerksen and lead Krysten Karwacki.

They weren’t in the top five seeds coming into this Manitoba Scotties. But now, their foursome is headed to the 2-vs-2 Page playoff, after edging Barb Spencer 5-4 in the final game of their round robin.

Those wins also marked the end of one of the most exciting stories of the Scotties – that of Dauphin skip Lisa Menard, who led a first-year foursome to a surprise 5-2 finish, including several key upsets. Menard had made three previous visits to provincials and each time gone 1-6 through the round robin. This time, the success left her with a shot at earning a tiebreaker game right until the end.

After Friday’s game, Menard said her team plans to stay together next season, and look to build on the encouraging results at these provincials.

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There is one more playoff spot to be decided in Beausejour on Saturday. At 12:15 p.m., the Asham round robin group will take to the ice for their last game. There is a three-way race for the group’s second playoff spot, with Shannon Birchard, Michelle Montford and Joelle Brown all with a chance at staying alive to play another game.

If Birchard wins her match against Montford, she will finish 6-1 on the week and snag the spot. If Montford wins, they will both finish the week 5-2, and play each other a second time today in a tiebreaker game. And if Montford wins, and McDonald loses to Joelle Brown in their last match? That would raise Brown to the 5-2 mark as well, and there would be two tiebreakers.