Lawton looking for big payout today

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/10/2011 (5390 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s the richest women’s bonspiel among the World Curling Tour Grand Slam events and the Stefanie Lawton team was right on the money on Sunday.

Lawton and her team from the Granite Curling Club in Saskatoon qualified out of the B-event for the championship round of the 2011 Manitoba Lotteries Women’s Curling Classic at the Fort Rouge Curling Club

Lawton and third Sherry Anderson, second Sherri Singler and lead Marliese Kasner defeated Cathy Overton-Clapham and her Fort Rouge team of third Jenna Loder, second Ashley Howard and lead Breanne Meakin 9-5 in the afternoon draw. Lawton, who put up three points in the third and eighth ends, earned the fourth qualifier spot and will appear along with seven other teams in the championship round today at 10 a.m.

Overton-Clapham went on to win one of the C-event qualifiers along with Heather Nedohin (Edmonton), Renee Sonnenberg (Grande Prairie, Alta.) and Cheryl Bernard (Calgary). The other qualifier from the B-event was the Kelly Scott team from the Kelowna Curling Club.

Qualifying through the A event were the Jennifer Jones team of St. Vital and the Darcy Robertson team from Fort Rouge.

The semifinals will be played at 1:30 p.m. followed by the final at 5 p.m.

The Manitoba Lotteries Women’s Curling Classic, which began Friday and included 32 of the top Canadian and international teams, has a prize purse of $60,000 with a top prize of $15,000. It is one of just three events selected by the Canadian Curling Association as a Grand Slam event for the 2011-2012 season and has been designated as a gold event in the Manitoba Curling Tour, which gives top ranking points to the event winner.

“It felt really good for us to earn that spot early in the day today to get a little bit of a break,” said Lawton, whose team won the Edmonton Shootout last month.

Lawton and her team are fine-tuning for the 2011 Canada Cup of Curling as they are among seven elite teams that have qualified for the event. The winner will earn a berth directly into the 2013 Canadian Curling Trials.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Mike McIntyre | On Sports

Thursdays

Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter.

Sign up for Mike McIntyre | On Sports

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

“This is such a great competition, to have a chance to play some of the top teams and that’s what we want right now is to play against top calibre curling and get some good games in. To qualify out of this calibre of teams is pretty big,” said Lawton, whose team was in fourth place in the Canadian Team Ranking System just behind Overton-Clapham coming into the event.

The Overton-Clapham team has already won a Grand Slam event this season earning $14,000 at the 2011 Curlers Corner Autumn Gold Classic in Calgary. Overton-Clapham is third on the World Curling Tour money list.

“There’s three women’s Slams in a year and we are fortunate to have one of them (at Fort Rouge), the ice has been just amazing to play on and the volunteers at the Fort Rouge are just great,” said Overton-Clapham, who is doubling as a tournament organizer in addition to competitor at the Manitoba Lotteries Women’s Curling Classic. “The money is just great too, it’s the biggest spiel cash-wise.

“We’re going to have the top teams because it’s a Slam event and that helps bring people out. Twenty-four of the spots go to Order of Merit teams (WCT points) so it attracts a lot of very good teams.”

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca