MacEwan Athletics

RED DEER – MacEwan women's curler Taitan Hagglund has been named to the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference all-star team.

Alternating at lead for the Griffins women's rink this season, Hagglund topped all others in the ACAC at the position and was named to a squad that includes skip Hollie Vincent and third Emily Plett of Red Deer College and second Sara Paulgaard of UAlberta-Augustana.

The curlers were honoured at the ACAC Championship banquet on Friday night in Red Deer.

"Taitan's a good player – a very good sweeper, very good thrower, but I think her biggest influence is she keeps the team on an even keel," said MacEwan head coach Tom Kitagawa. "She's a player who (keeps the mood light), so she really helps the team that way in addition to being a superlative player. She just helps diffuse some of the tension."

Hagglund was a part of MacEwan's ACAC Championship-winning women's rink last season that also captured a silver medal at the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association nationals. She also has an ACAC bronze medal in her collection after skipping the Griffins' mixed team in 2016-17.

MacEwan's women's rink didn't qualify for the ACAC Championship this weekend, but the mixed rink of skip Rebecca Bartz, third Brandt Holt, second Brennin Turner, lead Zale Zabolotniuk and alternates Rachael Hansen and Joel MacDonald kicked off round-robin action on Friday with an 8-7 win over NAIT.

On Saturday, they'll meet Lakeland (10 a.m.) and UAlberta-Augustana (2 p.m.) to close out round-robin play. From there, Seeds 1-2 meet for a spot in the gold medal game and Seeds 3-4 will go for a spot in the semifinal (7 p.m.).

Sunday features the 3-4 winner against the 1-2 loser in a semifinal (10 a.m.) before the gold and bronze matches at 2 p.m.