Mackenzie Zacharias, Gaetanne Gauthier, Emily Zacharias and Ashley Groff made all junior curlers in our province proud last week.

The Altona Curling Club foursome lost their first three games at 2018 Provincial Scotties Tournament of Hearts at the Shamrock Centre and then reeled off four straight wins.

“I never imagined we would win more games than we would lose,” said Zacharias shortly after her final round robin game last Friday in Killarney. “That’s incredible in my opinion. Our team came out here and we did our best. We came out here to have fun as a team one last time and I think we did that. We achieved all our goals that we could have.”

Zacharias lost to 2016 champion Kerri Einarson, 2017 finalist Darcy Robertson and three-time former champion Barb Spencer. Then defeated Jennifer Clark-Rouire of Miami, Cheryl Reed & Tiffany McLean of Brandon and fellow junior Rebecca Lamb of Stonewall.

“We played Rebecca literally every single bonspiel that we played in this year,” Zacharias said. “Both teams had a lot of fun with it. It was kind of nice to end off with a familiar team and it was great to end off with a win which is fantastic for our team. I think we were really happy with that.”

It was the second trip to the Scotties for the Altona skip who qualified for the 2016 Provincials in Beausejour at the tender age of 16.

“It’s such a long week but then you get to the end and it’s like,’Man that went by fast.’ We just wanted to soak it all in and I think we definitely did that,” said Zacharias. “We knew this was our last game of the year and last game together for awhile at least. There was a lot of emotions in the last end and after the game but I think we’re extremely excited with how it ended and how our season ended up.”

Gauthier and Groff were entering their final year of junior eligibility this past fall and made the decision to ask the Zacharias sisters to curl with them this season.

Coach Cathy Gauthier says she watched a very determined group of curlers these past five months.

“I have never coached a team or seen a team where there are four people that are on the same page. They wanted to have fun but they said integrity was going to be their single biggest principle. When you start with integrity as a principle in a sport, it’s all gravy because everything that they did together they did it with heart and they did it with passion. They never stopped laughing and smiling until the semifinals of the Provincial Juniors. It was heartbreaking.”

Zacharias, Gauthier, Zacharias and Groff lost the Provincial Junior semifinal to Meghan Walter of Elmwood.

It was the third straight year Zacharias fell one win short of reaching the provincial final.

“This year I think we won the last five or six events we played in so we came in as a strong number one seed, played really well but didn’t play as well in provincials as we had all year,” reflected coach Gauthier. “You try to play the best you can but sometimes your timing just isn’t good.”

I asked Mackenzie Zacharias if that round robin finale against fellow junior Rebecca Lamb may have been a preview of the 2023 Provincial Scotties Tournament of Hearts final.

She smiled.

“You never know. It could be. You really never know.”


Mackenzie Zacharias, Gaetanne Gauthier, Emily Zacharias & Ashley Groff