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Kerri Einarson splitting with team after season

Team Einarson will finish off the season before moving on.

The East St. Paul, Man., club announced Monday on social media skip Kerri Einarson will seek other options for 2018-19 while third Selena Kaatz, second Liz Fyfe and lead Kristin MacCuish are sticking together with a new captain heading into the next Olympic quadrennial.

Ranked seventh on the World Curling Tour’s year-to-date standings, Team Einarson plans to play in the remaining Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling tournaments before parting ways.

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Einarson and Fyfe linked up in 2012 and joined forces with Kaatz and MacCuish the following season. They captured the inaugural Tour Challenge Tier 2 title in September 2015, their first championship as a team, to earn a promotion to the elite ranks. Team Einarson continued their breakout season on tour winning their first Manitoba Scotties title in 2016.

The team captured their first Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling major title at the 2016 National but stumbled elsewhere on tour and slipped in the standings. They started this season back in the Tour Challenge Tier 2 group and won the championship for a second time in three seasons to return to the top stage for the Masters. Einarson went on a six-game winning streak at the tournament before falling to Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones in the final.

Although they were semifinalists at provincials this year, Einarson defeated Calgary’s Chelsea Carey to become the first wild-card entry at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. They took home the silver medal losing to Jones in the championship game.

The remaining Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling events this season are the Players’ Championship running April 10-15 at Toronto’s Mattamy Athletic Centre followed by the Humpty’s Champions Cup taking place April 24-29 at Calgary’s WinSport Arena.