Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
RED DEER – With three returning members from a women's rink that finished fourth at the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association national championship last March, the MacEwan Griffins picked right up where they left off over the weekend.
In the opening event of the 2018-19 season – the ACAC Fall Regional at Red Deer's Pidherney Curling Centre – the Griffins cruised to a 5-1 record, good for first place.
"For the women to go 5-1, that's a perfect outcome, as far as I'm concerned," said MacEwan head coach Tom Kitagawa. "A coach always wants to run the table 6-0, but 5-1 is great – first place."
After winning ACAC silver medals in 2017-18, the Griffins – comprised of skip Ashton Simard, third Erin Wells, second Andie Kurjata, lead Taitan Hagglund and alternate Rebecca Bartz – were the team to beat in the opening bonspiel of the season. All but Hagglund and Bartz played at the nationals last year, but the team's two newcomers have previously won ACAC medals representing MacEwan in the mixed division.
On Friday night, the Griffins opened with a 6-3 win over Lakeland before suffering their only defeat – a 9-5 setback to host Red Deer College. On Saturday, Simard's rink doubled up on Concordia 6-3 before beating Olds College 5-4. The rink finished with wins over NAIT (5-3) and UAlberta-Augustana (9-1) on Sunday.
"Overall, they had a really strong weekend, they played very well," said Kitagawa, noting assistant coach Brian Lupul is the coach on site for the Griffins women's rink, while he works with the men. "They played like (a team) that made it to a national championship last year.
"We talked a little bit about the loss to Red Deer and Brian said it was one of those games where we should have beaten them, but the skip was making some incredible shots and we couldn't break through that challenge. They had one end where the whole team made just about everything and we didn't make everything and that was the story. Beyond that, we were very consistent.
"The game against NAIT this morning, we were very consistent, right on everything."
Their performance sets the table nicely for the ACAC Winter Regional, which will be hosted by MacEwan at Avonair Curling Club on Jan. 25-27. Simard's 5-1 record will carry over and another six games will be played to determine the top four qualifiers for the ACAC Championship Feb. 22-24 at Olds College.
Currently, NAIT and RDC share second at 4-2, while Olds (3-3) is in the final qualifying spot. Concordia (2-4), UAlberta-Augustana (1-5) and Lakeland (1-5) are the pursuers.
On the men's side of the draw, with an all-rookie team – the first time MacEwan has had a men's entry in ACAC competition since 2014-15 – the Griffins finished 1-5.
The rink of John Semashkewich, Jordan Geiger, Brandon Rubisch, Dylan Vereschagin and Zale Zabolotniuk lost their opener 14-2 to host RDC on Friday night before getting progressively better as the spiel went on as they adjusted to the level of competition.
"We played Red Deer in the very first game, so it was a home ice advantage situation," said Kitagawa. "They came out confident playing on their home surface. They seemed to know exactly what was going on. Right from the very start, they jumped on us. To their credit, they played very well.
"Our five first-year players had some jitters and we didn't play very well. We'd make one, miss one, make one, miss one. When you're playing against a team that's shooting that well, that's going to eat you up."
MacEwan finished Friday play with a 10-4 loss to Olds College. On Saturday, they lost 7-5 to UAlberta-Augustana before picking up their first win – 6-4 over Lakeland. MacEwan closed out the competition on Sunday with a 9-0 loss to NAIT and a 6-1 loss to Concordia.
"I was very happy with their progress," said Kitagawa. "Every game, we got better and better. Even though we lost most of the rest of the game, every game I could see progress. The team was throwing better, becoming more comfortable.
"There were a couple of games where the score wasn't really indicative of the outcome. We would seem to miss shots at the wrong time and it came back to hurt us."
NAIT leads the men's division at a perfect 6-0, while RDC and Concordia share second at 4-2. Olds holds the final ACAC Championship qualifying position right now after a 3-3 mark, while Lakeland (2-4) and UAlberta-Augustana (1-5) are in the pack of pursuers with MacEwan.
"I had hopes for 3-3, which would have been a great weekend for a brand-new team, but I see positive signs," said Kitagawa.
"For the next go-round, there were two games I thought were winnable," he added. "So, if we can (pick up a couple others) and go 4-2 in the next round … I'll be happy. It's like any rebuilding year. Show progress. That's what I saw this weekend, which is what I'm positive about."