Karen Fallis and her Fort Rouge team (Maureen Bonar, Lynn Fallis-Kurz, Laurie Ellwood) are the new Manitoba Masters Women’s Champions after defeating the Judy Colwell team 7-4 this afternoon in Portage.

Team Fallis lost their opening game of the double round robin series to Colwell and never lost again – running off six consecutive wins to gain the title.

In the Men’s Championship, the 2-3 crossover games were won by Mark Franklin-Granite (over Morley Walker-Arden) and Stan Struthers-Pembina (7-2 over Mike Mahon-Granite).

Franklin and Struthers will play in the Page Playoff elimination games this evening in Portage. Murray Warren – Brandon (7W-0L) plays Randy Neufeld – La Salle (6W-1L) on the top side of the Page Playoff draw.

The winner of the Warren-Neufeld games goes to the Monday afternoon final while the loser plays the Franklin-Struthers winner Monday morning at 9AM.

MANITOBA’S CREDIT UNIONS MASTERS CHAMPIONSHIPS UNDERWAY: Four teams, one in the Women’s competition and only three in the Men’s championship, are unbeaten after the two-game opening day of the Manitoba’s Credit Unions Masters Championship in Portage.

In the four team Women’s division, where the teams will play a double round-robin with playoffs, East St. Paul’s Judy Colwell team leads the way with a pair of first day victories. Skipped by Wendy Nykoluk, the leaders defeated Karen Fallis (Fort Rouge) and Deb McCreanor (La Salle) in their two victories. Fallis and McCreanor both have 1W-1L records.

In the Men’s competition, defending champion Randy Neufeld (La Salle) and the Stan Struthers (Pembina) team, with Gord MacKay throwing fourth stones, have 2W-0L records to lead the Asham Group standings board. Former champion Murray Warren (Brandon) has the only 2W-0L record in the Asham Ultra Force Group.

The 16-team Master Men’s championship features three teams from the Granite CC, two each from Brandon, Hamiota and Fort Rouge and single entries from Arden, Burntwood, East St. Paul, La Salle Miami, Stonewall, and Virden.

The teams will play seven games in their 8-team round robin pools.

Playoffs in both the Men’s and Women’s championships will wrap up Sunday afternoon.

Two other sets of provincial jackets and crests will be awarded this weekend as well. The 18-team Dynasty Mixed Doubles Championship begins Friday evening in Beausejour while the 24-team SunLife Financial Manitoba Stick Championship presented by Jim Anton gets underway Friday morning in Morris.