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Team Koltun began its pursuit of a second straight Scotties appearance over the weekend.

The Yukon women鈥檚 curling team led by Sarah Koltun went 3-2 at the Cloverdale Cash Spiel in Surrey,鈥圔.C., getting knocked out of competition in the quarter-finals yesterday.

Chilliwack鈥檚 Team Prinse ousted the Koltun rink with a 9-6 victory in eight ends.

The playoff berth earned the Whitehorse squad $700, which served as a reimbursement of their bonspiel fees.

Koltun, 21, said her squad has one goal on its mind this season 鈥� a return to the Scotties.

鈥淥verall, we played pretty well especially for the first few games of the season,鈥� she told the Star this morning. 鈥淚t was a good way to start off the season 鈥� especially with the three wins right away.

鈥淎t the end of the day, we played pretty well and it鈥檚 just our first spiel of the year. We鈥檒l just take what we can from it.鈥�

Team Koltun rapped off three straight wins to open the bonspiel, defeating New Westminster鈥檚 Diane Gushulak 6-2, Richmond鈥檚 Kelly Shimizu 12-5 and Delta鈥檚 Sarah Daniels 6-4.

Team Koltun dropped its final game of pool play 11-5 to the event鈥檚 defending champion, Patti Knezevic of Prince George.

Despite the playoff loss, the Yukon rink did finish second in scoring at the 15-team event by averaging 9.72 points per game, behind only eventual champion Sijia Liu of China.

Joining Koltun on the ice this weekend were longtime mates Chelsea Duncan, Patty Wallingham, and Jenna Duncan.

Unlike last year, when Koltun and Wallingham remained in the territory for extra training, the group decided to return to college this season.

While Koltun is attending Trinity Western University, Wallingham is enrolled at Douglas College while Jenna Duncan is studying at Simon Fraser University.

Chelsea Duncan remains at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

Koltun said the team has four more bonspiels planned this season, before Scotties playdowns begin.

Any successes this season will be the result of plenty of hard work the skip acknowledged.

鈥淥ur last two games we didn鈥檛 play very well,鈥� Koltun said. 鈥淏oth games we could have won, but we were just making too many little mistakes.

鈥淲e鈥檝e learned a lot and we know where we need to go.鈥�