THE HOG LINE: Lyburn, Hadway thrilled to reach Manitoba Scotties

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This article was published 24/01/2023 (1118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For her birthday each year, Dauphin’s Makenna Hadway got to attend the Manitoba Scotties at different rinks throughout the province.

This time, she’s in the field and makes her women’s provincial curling championship debut today at the East St. Paul Arena, as the lead for Katy Lukowich’s squad from the Fort Garry Curling Club in Winnipeg.

“It’s a dream come true and it’s pretty cool to be here after watching it for so long,” Hadway said.

The team also includes second Mikaylah Lyburn, who was born in Brandon and now calls Winnipeg home. Lyburn’s father William, who reached the final at the Viterra Championship in 2019 in Virden, is their coach.

“I wasn’t quite as emotional as my parents were when we clinched our spot here, but I was super happy that we accomplished this and all of the hard work that we put in this season paid off,” Mikaylah said.

“I think it’s probably going to sink in that I’m actually at the Scotties (today) when we play our first game.”

The Lukowich rink opens their Asham Black group schedule this morning against Chelsea Carey. They take on Darcy Robertson at 4 p.m. today.

They face Kaitlyn Lawes and Emma Jensen on Thursday before wrapping up their slate against Beth Peterson on Friday morning.

The Asham Express Red group features Carberry’s Alyssa Calvert, Abby Ackland, Grace Beaudry, Jennifer Jones, Lisa McLeod and Kristy Watling.

The Lukowich team qualified for the provincials last month at the Winnipeg regional qualifier at the Deer Lodge Curling Club with wins over Christina Johnson and Robinson.

Lyburn said that the team originally entered the event to fine-tune their game for the Manitoba Junior Curling Tour championship and the junior provincial playdowns, which were both held after Christmas.

“We got into a pretty good rhythm right away and we stepped up our game to be a little more aggressive against the Robertson rink to get that spot,” Lyburn said.

“To get that Scotties spot was a pretty pleasant surprise for all of us,” Hadway added.

While the Lukowich rink enjoyed a successful season on the junior bonspiel circuit — they won a pair of MJCT stops and captured the Sun Life Financial Junior Challenge in Brandon — their provincial run ended on a disappointing note in Portage la Prairie last Friday.

Despite entering the event as the top seed, they lost playoff qualifiers to Zoey Terrick, Beaudry and Tansy Tober.

“It was a tough way to finish things off but we played our hardest and we’ve made sure that we’ve kept our motivation up coming into the Scotties,” Hadway said.

“We’re holding our heads up high,” Lyburn added. “I think we all realize that we still have a lot of years left in the game and we’ll have more chances to win a Buffalo down the line.”

As one of two junior rinks that qualified for this year’s playdowns — the other is Beaudry’s quartet from the St. Vital — Lyburn and Hadway are hoping to take in as much as they can from playing against the top women’s teams in Manitoba.

“If we can feed off of everyone’s energy and use that to our advantage, I think we can have a good week,” Hadway said.

The top three teams in each group advance to the championship round, which begins Friday night and runs through Saturday.

The semifinal and final take place Sunday, with the winner going on to represent Manitoba at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Kamloops, B.C. from Feb. 17-26.

Unlike previous years, which saw the playoffs air nationally on Sportsnet, the entire event is being streamed on CurlManitoba’s YouTube page.

• • •

This week is busy on the playdowns scene as the Newfoundland & Labrador, Northern Ontario, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan Scotties representatives will punch their tickets to the national event.

Two women’s provincial champions were crowned last Sunday.

Andrea Kelly cruised to the New Brunswick title, while Kayla Skrlik made a miraculous double takeout on her final shot to beat Casey Scheidegger in the Alberta final.

On the wild card front, Rachel Homan, Jones and Lawes are currently holding on to the three spots.

If everything goes status quo and two of those three rinks win provincial titles on Sunday, Scheidegger, Ackland and Ontario’s Isabelle Ladouceur are in the mix to earn a spot at the Scotties.

Meanwhile, the picture for the Tim Hortons Brier starts to take shape this weekend as the Newfoundland & Labrador, Northern Ontario, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Prince Edward Island playdowns are taking place.

The men’s national championship runs from March 3-12 in London, Ont.

• • •

On the local scene, the Taylor Jackson Sun Life Financial Services Westman Super League of Curling wraps up this week at the Brandon Curling Club.

The quarterfinals take place tonight at 8:30 with Chris Bridges facing Graham Freeman and Duane Payette going up against Kelly Marnoch.

Jeff Stewart and Steve Irwin have both earned byes to the semifinals, which get underway at 10 a.m. Sunday.

Stewart takes on the winner of the Bridges and Freeman game, while Irwin squares off either Payette or Marnoch.

The championship contest begins at 2 p.m. Sunday.

• • •

A sendoff party for Jace Freeman’s under-18 rink is taking place at the Virden Curling Club Saturday at 7 p.m.

The team — which features third Elias Huminicki, second Jack Steski and lead Rylan Graham — is set to represent Manitoba at the under-18 nationals in Timmins, Ont., and the Canada Winter Games in Summerside, P.E.I. next month.

Tickets for the event are $10 and can be purchased at the Virden Curling Club, or by contacting Cory Barkley at 204-851-6405 or via email at corybarkley@hotmail.com.

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