Dave Leaderhouse
Special to the Herald
The St. Mary High School doubles curling team of Jadon Sosnowski and Sara Pawlyshyn will be making a return trip to the Saskatchewan High School Athletics Association provincial championships following a perfect performance at regional qualifying action held in Prince Albert on the weekend.
Sosnowski and Pawlyshyn had a bye in the opening round of the six-team field before beating Muenster 6-2 in A-qualifier, semi-final action and then outlasting Rosthern 6-4 to successfully defend the regional title they captured a year ago in Wynyard. Pawlyshyn said she and her partner practised simple techniques that normally aren’t credited with success in the sport.
“We had a lot of positive comments for each other and we also made sure we were breathing normally before each shot,” said Pawlyshyn.
“(Now) we have to keep communicating and work real hard in practise next week,” added the Grade 11 student in reference to trying to improve on their bronze-medal finish at last year’s provincials as they will head to Estevan next weekend for the 2026 provincial championship.
The St. Mary duo will be joined in Estevan by the team from Muenster who won the B-qualifier on Saturday with a 6-5 decision over Rosthern. Muenster took a much longer route to get to provincials as they opened the event with a 5-4 victory over Warman and after the loss to St. Mary they needed three straight wins that was culminated with the outcome against Rosthern.
Prince Albert almost had another team advancing to a provincial championship, but Carlton Comprehensive High School could not match their dominance from opening-day action in the boy’s competitions, losing both the A- and B-qualifiers on Saturday.
After manhandling both Humboldt and Dalmeny on Friday by 10-0 and 7-0 verdicts, respectively, the Carlton team of skip Jake Goodwin, third Owen Tolley Procyk, second Daniel Acorn and lead Cruz Clarke were outscored 10-4 by Wynyard in the A-qualifier and 8-7 by Langham in the B-qualifier on Saturday.
Wynyard and Langham will now travel to Moose Jaw next weekend in search of the provincial title in the boy’s competitions.
One other champion was determined in Prince Albert on the weekend and that had Wadena doubling Hanley 6-3 in the A-qualifier final of the open mixed competitions. Wadena went undefeated in the event after opening with a 10-3 victory over Shellbrook and then following that up with an 8-2 triumph over Warman in the A-event semi-finals.
Hanley later lost 9-1 to Warman in the B-qualifier resulting in Wadena and Warman claiming the regional berths for the provincial mixed championships, which are also slated for Moose Jaw next weekend.
The St. Mary team of skip Molly Baillargeon, third Parker Gobeil, second Tayah Hulowski and lead Greyson de Padua were 1-2 in the mixed event sandwiching a 9-4 victory over Carrot River between a 7-3 setback to Englefeld and 14-1 loss to Warman.
Lastly, the regional girl’s playdowns were held in La Ronge on the weekend with La Ronge and Martensville claiming the two spots for provincials next weekend in Martensville.
La Ronge won the A-qualifier title with a convincing 10-3 decision over Tisdale while Martensville also had little trouble with Tisdale in the B-qualifier winning that berth by a 14-4 verdict.
Two local teams that were in the girl’s field were a combined 1-4 with St. Mary losing both of its matches 6-4 to Choiceland and 7-2 to Martensville while Meath Park followed a 15-2 setback to Tisdale in the opening round with a 13-8 victory over Choiceland before being eliminated with a 9-2 loss to Martensville in the B-qualifier semi-finals.
A real quirky nugget of information gleaned from this weekend’s action had every team that lost in an A-qualifier final also falling in their respective B-qualifier finals. Carlton was beaten by both Wynyard and Langham in the boy’s event while Rosthern was victimized by St. Mary and Muenster in the doubles. Hanley had a similar fate against Wadena and Warman in the mixed competitions and Tisdale was on the wrong end in both finals in the women’s draw falling to La Ronge and Martensville.
