NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS Brown, Clark rinks earn national titles By Terry L. Davis, Editor
camaraderie throughout the weeklong event at Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville. Emerging as champions of the 2016 USA Curl-
F
ing National Championships on Feb. 13 were teams skipped by Olympian Erika Brown and Seattle's Brady Clark, who has won national titles at multiple levels. Te Clark rink won the men’s final in convinc-
ing fashion with a 10-4 victory over John Shuster on the final night of competition. It was the third time the two sides met during the week with Clark (Lynnwood, Wash.) and his team of Greg Persinger (Fairbanks, Alaska), Colin Hufman (Seattle), and Philip Tilker (Seattle) prevailing all three times against Shuster’s defending champi- ons. “I told people close to me that I expected to
come here and win it,” Clark said. “Tis was the best week of my men’s curling career. We capped it off just playing fantastic. Hats off to my team – I think we played fantastic; the icemakers were fantastic; and I think John’s team played really well. We were just on our game and put pressure on them the whole game.” Tis is the second men’s national champi-
onship for Clark and Tilker, who won the title together in 2013, and first for Persinger and Hufman. “I’ve played this game a long, long, long time
and have been unbelievably close more times than I can count. Honestly at this point, for me it’s more relief than anything,” Hufman said. “It’s pretty exciting. It’s been a crazy week; we
knew we could do it, we just had to go through the motions,” said Tilker, 39. “We got a little lead in the game and had to keep our emotions in check. It’s not over until it’s over. We are thrilled to be going to the Champions Cup. Tis is a big deal for us winning this event here even though we don’t get to go to Worlds, because there were other things on the line. We are thrilled to be able to come out and beat John.” Despite the loss in the national championship
title game, Shuster (Duluth, Minn.) and his team of Tyler George (Duluth, Minn.), Matt Hamil- ton (McFarland, Wis.), and John Landsteiner (Duluth, Minn.) earned enough points in the season-long qualification to represent the U.S. at the 2016 World Men’s Championship, where the
14
usacurl.org ))
2016 women’s national champions (l-r) Natalie Nicholson, Nicole Joraanstad, Erika Brown, and Allison Pottinger.
Photo by Rich Harmer Round robin standings: Women
Nina Roth (McFarland, Wis.) Erika Brown (Oakville, Ontario) Jamie Sinclair (Blaine, Minn.) Cory Christensen (Duluth, Minn.) Emily Anderson (Broomall, Pa.) Joyance Meechai (New York City)
Page 1-2 game: Roth
*Brown
Page 3-4 game: *Sinclair
Christensen
Semifinal: *Roth
Christensen
Gold-medal game: *Brown Roth
*last rock in first end
team secured a bronze medal for the U.S. (See story on Page 15.) By winning the Nationals, Team Clark and
Team Brown earned the right to represent the U.S. at the 2016 Champions Cup, a Grand Slam of Curling event, which took place April 26-May 1 in Sherwood Park, Alberta. “Tat was our goal here. We knew coming into this that we weren’t probably going to have enough points to get to Worlds so we wanted to make sure we won the title and got to the Champions Cup,” said Pers- inger, 37. “It’s hard to explain. It’s my first na- tional championship and it feels great. Te guys have worked really hard for this and played well all week.”
Women’s recap Te number of championship titles for Team
Erika Brown is starting to run onto a second page – and the next chapter started Feb. 13 at the 2016
001 000 002 1 – 4 100 101 110 0 – 5
010 020 002 0 – 5 000 200 030 1 – 6
020 101 101 1 – 7 201 010 010 0 – 5
100 200 210 02 – 8 020 001 001 20 – 6
5-1 5-1 5-1 3-3 1-5 1-5
Abigayle Lindgren (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1-5
2016 men’s national champions (l-r) Brady Clark, Greg Persinger, Colin Hufman, and Philip Tilker. Photo by Rich Harmer
Round robin standings: Men
Brady Clark (Lynnwood, Wash.) John Shuster (Duluth, Minn.) Korey Dropkin (Duluth, Minn.) Craig Brown (Madison, Wis.) Todd Birr (Blaine, Minn.)
Hunter Clawson (Clarksville, Md.) Pete Fenson (Bemidji, Minn.) Brandon Corbett (Rochester, N.Y.) Alex Leichter (Boston)
Heath McCormick (Sarnia, Ontario)
Page 1-2 playoff: *Clark Shuster
Page 3-4 playoff: *Dropkin Brown
Semifinal: *Shuster Brown
Gold-medal game: *Clark Shuster
*last rock in first end
USA Curling National Championships as the team defeated Nina Roth, 8-6, to add one more title to their already impressive curling careers. Te victory marked the 11th
040 031 xxx x – 8 000 200 xxx x – 2
001 001 010 x – 3 000 210 301 x – 7
020 002 3xx x – 7 000 010 0xx x – 3
021 030 202 x – 10 000 101 020 x – 4
8-1 7-2 6-3 5-4 4-5 4-5 4-5 3-6 3-6 1-8
lorida made history by hosting a nation- al event for the first time in the curling’s history and brought in great crowds and
national champi-
onship title for Allison Pottinger (Eden Prairie, Minn.); ninth for Brown (Oakville, Ontario) and Nicholson (Bemidji, Minn.); and eighth for Jo- raanstad (Verona, Wis.). “It’s terrific and they certainly made us work
for it today so it feels really good,” said Pottinger, 42. “We just had such a good season and came
Continued on Page 16
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50