Team Samagalski takes Manitoba mixed curling championship

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This article was published 27/03/2016 (3814 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One buffalo jacket suited Kerri Einarson so well this season, she went out on the weekend and snagged another.

The reigning provincial women’s curling champion helped capture the 2016 Manitoba mixed curling championship on Sunday night, throwing third for skip Derek Samagalski’s rink. That makes a rare single-year double title for Einarson, and her fourth provincial mixed championship with her husband.

“It’s a pretty awesome feeling, to get two buffalos in the same year,” Einarson said, shortly after the win.

It was a close call. Team Samagalski, which also includes Einarson’s husband Kyle Einarson at second and Jennifer Clark-Rouire at lead, beat 2015 world junior champion Braden Calvert in a tight 3-2 final at Neepawa Curling Club.

Samagalski had gone up 2-0 after a third-end steal of one, but Calvert got that point back in the sixth when Samagalski narrowly missed a double take-out for three, and gave up a steal instead. But they held on to blank the seventh, and Samagalski didn’t have to throw his last rock in the eighth to get the win.

With the championship, the squad has earned a spot in the 2017 Canadian mixed curling championships, which are set for Yarmouth, N.S. in November. But that could prove tricky, with their main teams’ schedules: Samagalski will be busy throwing second for Reid Carruthers, while Einarson’s team is set to launch into next season’s grand slams.

“We’re definitely going to have to sit down with our teams and look into it, and see if it conflicts,” Einarson said, adding they may consider getting an alternate for her women’s team, if it conflicts.

After all, her women’s squad will have a lot on their hands. They’re not done yet this season: even with their fourth-place finish at Scotties behind them, Einarson’s East St. Paul foursome is booked for the elite Players Championship in mid-April, and could wrap their 2015-16 campaign with a spot in the Champions Cup grand slam.

The merit points they racked up this season will also help open the door to more slams in 2016-17.

You’d think with all of that buzz, Einarson would have taken some time off after the whirlwind of her rookie Scotties. Well, she did — but that just meant spending more time on the ice.

“Since I got back from the Scotties, I’ve been curling quite a bit,” she said. “Just playing in fun spiels with family and friends, just enjoying it instead of having it be so much pressure. Playing in (the mixed championships) was relaxing and it’s fun, doing it with my husband and two other great friends of ours.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca