UPDATE: Team Laycock defeated Rylan Kleiter 8-5 this morning and will face Kelly Knapp of the Highland Curling Club in Regina in the A semi-final tonight at 7:30pm.

Original story follows:

Steve Laycock and his team from the Swift Current Curling Club opened play at the SaskTel Tankard men's curling championship with an 8-4 win over junior men's champion Logan Ede and his rink from Martensville on Wednesday night in Estevan.

Laycock, with local curlers Shaun Meachem at third and Chris Haichert at second, scored deuces in the second and fifth ends to move ahead 4-3 at the break. After Ede scored one in the sixth to tie the game, Laycock blanked the seventh end and picked up two with hammer in the eighth, before stealing two more in the ninth to wrap up the win.

Team Laycock will face Rylan Kleiter and his rink from the Nutana in Saskatoon in the A-Event quarter-final this morning at 9:30am. The winner will move on to tonight's A semi-final.

The playoff draws will happen this weekend with the winning team representing Saskatchewan at the Tim Hortons Brier in London, Ontario, in March.