VICTORIA, February 23, 2009 — Alberta's Cheryl Bernard is back on track at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts Canadian women's curling championship.

Bernard and her Calgary quartet — third Susan O'Connor, second Carolyn Darbyshire and lead Cori Bartel — took B.C.'s Marla Mallett down from the ranks of the unbeaten with a 4-3 decision in Draw 8 Monday night at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.

The result left both teams with 4-1 records, tied for second place behind Jennifer Jones and Team Canada.

Alberta stole the winning point in the 10th end when Mallett came up short of the rings on her draw to bite the button for the win.

It was Alberta's fourth straight victory after losing its opener to Team Canada on Saturday.

"I feel like I'm getting the ice; it's way better," said Bernard. "Maybe it just took time to figure it out. We kind of tried to break it up into thirds, so to end up at this point with one loss after the first third of the week, that's pretty good."

Meanwhile, Saskatchewan's Stefanie Lawton completed a much-needed perfect day at the Scottes with an 8-4 win over Nova Scotia's Nancy McConnery. Saskatchewan, which opened the Scotties with three straight losses, got to 2-3 with an impressive effort against Nova Scotia, taking control of the game with a first-end deuce and three more in the fourth end.

It was a much looser Saskatchewan team on Monday after a night out on Sunday.

"We just went out to the Heartstop, sat with some family, did some dancing, just kind of relaxed," said Lawton. " It just loosens us up and says, you know what? We're here to play. We're watching the Scotties on TSN, and we're (ital) in (end ital) that, let's go play, let's have fun out there."

Nova Scotia dropped to 1-4 with the setback.

Team Canada played its toughest game of the week so far, finally eking out a 6-5 win over Ontario's Krista McCarville. Team Canada stole the winning point when McCarville wrecked on a guard while trying to remove a nearly fully buried Team Canada shot rock.

In the other game Monday night, Manitoba's Barb Spencer captured her second straight victory after losing her first three, romping to an 8-3 win over Newfoundland/Labrador's Heather Strong. Manitoba was one up without hammer playing the 10th end before putting the win away with a steal of four. The loss dropped Newfoundland/Labrador to 1-4.

P.E.I.'s Rebecca Jean MacPhee (3-2), Quebec's Marie-France Larouche (3-2), New Brunswick's Andrea Kelly (2-3) and Kerry Galusha of the Northwest Territories/Yukon (1-4) all had byes in Draw 8

On Tuesday, draws are scheduled for 11:30 a.m., 4 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. All three will be shown live on TSN, with the morning draw available on TSN.ca. As well, archived footage from earlier draws is available for viewing at TSN.ca.