Payette, West crowned Wheat City Classic champions

Another successful Wheat City Classic is in the books.

Brandon’s fifth annual bonspiel at the Brandon Curling Club and Riverview Curling Club saw 28 men’s teams and 24 women’s teams duke it out on the sheet over four days, throwing stones by day and then coming together off the ice with live music by night. When it was all said and done, new champions were crowned while some extended their bragging rights for another year.

BACK TO BACK

Theresa Payette and her rink of Kaitlyn Sahulka, Jennah Derksen and Kelsey Crandall doubled down on their winning ways at the Wheat City Classic, capturing the women’s A-side championship for a second straight year after defeating Michelle Klemick and her rink of Jenna Sambrook, Autum Logan and Roz Taylor.

“It feels great,” said Payette post-victory on Sunday. “It’s a lot of fun. These ladies are awesome, and I get to curl with my daughter, which is even better.”

Her daughter Sahulka and the rest of the crew curl together just once a year, and if the results were any indication, you’d think they played together all the time, but it’s just a matter of natural chemistry, according to Payette.

“Kelsey throws really great draw weight. I coached Jenna for BU (Brandon University) curling, so I already knew how Jenna threw, and of course, I’ve curled with Kaitlyn, so it was great,” she said. “Competitions are always great in this spiel and we wanted to try to redeem ourselves from last year and do it again.”

The other results from the women’s side are:

• B event: Brigitte Chappellaz

• C event: Stacey Hainstock

• D event: J Webster

WEST EARNS BEST

Allan West couldn’t wait to replace the sour taste left in his mouth from last year’s defeat to Travis Taylor’s squad in the final, and this year, he delivered. West’s rink of Justin West, Austin West and Cale Dunbar got the job done against Chad Sahulka’s rink of Brady Sahulka, Brayden Payette and Keith Murkin to earn themselves the men’s A-side championship.

“It feels really good to finish first,” said West. “We knew we had to bring our A game because the teams out here this week were really good and we had a tough run to get here, but we played well this weekend.”

A big part of that was Team West’s motivation, which was at an all-time high after finishing as the runner-up last year. West said his foursome was more than prepared to make sure they would finish on the right side of the score clock this time around.

“We just wanted to be that one step better, that’s kind of the way we looked at it, and we were,” he said. “Just focus a little bit more for myself, I was throwing better, and the rest of the team, we maybe weren’t quite as hungover.”

Here are the other results from the men’s side:

• B event: Ryan Meadows/Brooks Freeman (co-winners due to forfeit)

• C event: Travis Taylor

• D event: Al Fitzmaurice

» mdelucataronno@brandonsun.com