Njegovan leads team to Scotties playoffs; Fleury's status still up in the air

Missing their star skip, Selena Njegovan has led Team Tracy Fleury to the playoffs at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. 

Njegovan and Wild Card 1 clinched one of the three playoff spots in Pool A Wednesday night thanks to an 8-2 win over Nunavut at Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay.

With another win tonight, we’ve secured a playoff spot! Last round robin game tomorrow at 2pm ET vs McCarville pic.twitter.com/7LK1IPsgAb

The team from East St. Paul, Man., were thrown a curve ball before the start of competition on Friday as it was revealed their regular skip Tracy Fleury was entering COVID-19 protocol. 

Njegovan, the third on the team, took over full skip duties while sister-in-law and alternate Robyn Njegovan came in to play vice. Second Liz Fyfe and lead Kristin MacCuish remained at their regular positions. 

Team Fleury dropped their opener on Friday night to New Brunswick's Andrea Crawford, but have proceeded to reel off six straight games to make it into the playoffs. 

"It doesn't surprise us," said Njegovan after the win over Nunavut. "We are a great team all together and Robyn has filled in perfectly with us. We do miss Tracy like crazy and I'm not going to lie, we were a little worried without her, but we've worked really hard to get to this point and we're really happy to be where we're at."  

Njegovan has been one of the best skips in Thunder Bay, shooting 81 per cent for the week through seven games. The 30-year-old credited her team for giving her the opportunity to succeed. 

"The three girls have been unbelievable all week," she said. "They have had so much confidence in me and believed in me going up to skip. As everyone knows, this isn't my preferred position, so they've been so great in front of me and