Moose Jaw hosted 28 teams from around the province over the weekend at the Moose Jaw Ford Curling Centre, but it was a local rink that stood tall in the end.

Moose Jaw’s Penny Barker beat out 16 other teams to win the Saskatchewan Women’s Curling Tour event with a 7-5 triumph over Regina’s Ashley Howard in the final on Sunday.

Barker said that they used the home ice to their advantage throughout the three days.

“It’s nice that we get to play here every week, so we kind of have a feel for how the ice goes and it helps, it’s a little advantage going in,” she said.  “We played well all weekend, we had a couple of rough ends here and there, but we were able to bounce back and pull out the wins.”

The way that the weekend played out was similar to how the final went on Sunday.

Barker opened with a single in the first, but Howard jumped out in front thanks to a deuce in the second.  Barker answered with a deuce of her own in the third and Howard was able to tie the game up at 3-3 with a single in the fourth.

It was the fifth end that really swung the game in Barker’s favour as they scored three to take control and hold the lead the rest of the way.

“They were playing really well, so we just tried to keep the pressure on as much as we could and take advantage of the few opportunities that they did give us,” said Barker.

After advancing to their first Scotties Tournament of Hearts last season, the Barker rink has put together a strong start to the 2017-18 season with two wins in their past two SWCT events. They’ve been in the top-four in their last three events as well.

They went 3-0 in the round robin this weekend and then beat Regina’s Chantelle Eberle, 6-5, in the semifinals, while Howard knocked off Saskatoon’s Rachel Fritzler, 8-7, in the other semi.

“We’ve had a really good fall so far,” said Barker.  “We won an event in Regina (at the start of October), we went 2-1 and lost a tiebreaker early in the year, and we went 3-0 and lost in the championship round last weekend in Saskatoon and got second in Medicine Hat, so we just need to keep going.

As they’re finding success on the ice to start the year, Barker said that they just want to continue building off each event as they get ready for provincials in Jan.

“There’s a few shots here and there that we can be a little bit better on and cleaning up those things over the next little while is only going to help us make a run at it again,” said Barker.

The young Skylar Ackerman rink out of Moose Jaw finished first in their pool during the round robin, posting a 2-1 record that included an 8-5 win over Howard and an 11-0 win over Lumsden’s Lisa Wyatt.

Ackerman would fall to Brandon, Man.’s Team Chapellaz, 5-4, in the opening round of the playoffs.

The men’s event was won by the Brent Gedak rink out of Estevan, which includes Moose Jaw’s Derek Owens at second.  They topped Saskatoon’s Jason Jacobson, 7-6 in an extra end, in the final on Sunday afternoon.