Kerry Galusha and her rink from the Yellowknife Curling Centre are heading back to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts next month, but they were made to earn it courtesy of Hay River's Betti Delorey.

Delorey and her rink of Halli-Rae Delorey, Makayla Cook and Tyanna Bain out of the Hay River Curling Club were on the ice to take on Galusha and company in the NWT Women's Curling Championship in the capital this past weekend in what was a best-of-five series. It happened that way as Delorey and Galusha were the only two rinks to enter and the first team to win three games would be declared the winner.

It certainly started out well for Delorey as the Hay River foursome beat Galusha by a score of 11-6 in the opening draw on Jan. 17. Playing without last rock advantage in the opening end, Delorey managed to put up a steal of two in the first end and followed that with a steal of three in the second. Another stolen single in the third end put Delorey up 6-0 at that point.

"We just came out guns blazing," said Delorey. "We hoped to have a good start and we weren't surprised the final outcome. You think about the scoreboard, but you don't want to think too far ahead of the final score."

Galusha got two back in the fourth, but Delorey score another in the fifth and stole another one in the sixth to pile on the pressure. Galusha scored three with the hammer in the seventh and stole a single in the eighth to get it back to 8-6, but three in the ninth was good enough for Galusha to shake hands after that and hand Delorey the win.

The win was the first time a team had beaten Galusha at a territorial playdown since 2014.

The second draw on Jan. 18 saw the same exact result as the first with the final score being 11-6, only this time in favour of Galusha. Draw three also went Galusha's way by a score of 11-4 and Galusha was able to close it out in fourth draw on Jan. 19 with a 12-0 win, stealing all 12 points on her way to victory and the title.

Delorey said the team was still wondering where it all went wrong.

"We were asking ourselves that after the second draw," she said. "Maybe it was the adrenaline that got to us, maybe we could've been tighter in some areas. We still played really well in the second game, but the third and fourth draws just weren't representative of who we are as players. I'm just guessing, but we don't know what happened."

This season is the first one together for the ladies and they got to work even before the ice was put in at the curling club this season. They went to Calgary for the Curlers Corner Autumn Gold Curling Classic back in October to play as a unit for the first time and it was a shock to the system, admitted Delorey.

"We played Selena Sturmay (of Edmonton) and she's one of the better teams out of Alberta," she said. "We had a close one with Serena Gray-Withers (of Edmonton) and had a much closer game, but we walked away with some good confidence. We won the A event at a spiel here in Hay River and we went to Okotoks (Alta., in November) for another one. We won our first game there. It's all about team-building, meshing and communication."

Delorey added that the ladies plan on playing in at least one more bonspiel down south, but the location hasn't been picked out yet.

"(Makayla) is looking after that for us," she said. "It'll be competitive, but not too competitive. Hopefully something a bit more relaxed to give us a chance to work on goals that we identified in Yellowknife."