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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb. 24, 2005
Youngest
team in the field grabs final semifinal berth at U.S.
Olympic Trials
(MADISON, Wis.) – The future of women’s curling in the
U.S. was on display Thursday night as the Aileen
Sormunen rink of Duluth, Minn., defeated the Amy Wright
rink, 13-10, to grab the last semifinal berth at the
2006 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Curling at the Madison
Curling Club.
The teams finished the round robin tied at 5-4 and
played a tiebreaker tonight to determine who would play
tomorrow against Patti Lank’s team in the semifinals.
Sormunen and teammates Courtney George, Amanda Jensen
and Amanda McLean (all of Duluth, Minn.) overcame a 5-2
deficit by scoring five in the fifth end after Wright
crashed on a guard while trying to draw the four-foot to
limit Team Sormunen to just one point. Sormunen calmly
threw a hit and stayed in the rings to count five.
However, the rock got to the house behind excellent
sweeping by Jensen and McLean as it appeared to be
headed straight for one of the top guards.
“I thought it was going to crash,” said McLean, a
sophomore at Duluth Marshall High School. Jensen agreed
adding that the ice was so precise that they were able
to pull it back on course.
Team Sormunen, which won the U.S. Junior National
Championship in 2004, hopes to eclipse another team goal
– to defeat Patti Lank for the first time. The team
forced an extra end with Team Lank earlier this week in
the round robin. Jensen said the team has defeated all
the other women’s team in the field but has yet to add
Lank to the list.
“We go into every game as the underdogs, and it’s fun to
prove to people that we can curl with the best teams out
there,” said Jensen, 19. “We’re the only junior team out
here and we just curl the best we can.”
In the seventh end, Team Sormunen had Wright stuck
between a rock and a hard place once again sitting four.
Wright tried to roll off her own stone on the top of the
12-foot but nosed it and rolled out. Sormunen attempted
the same shot with a little lighter weight and it looked
like it was headed toward the guard once again when
Jensen and McLean were able to guide it back on course
for the hit and roll. Wright then tried to hit off of
Sormunen’s rock but it didn’t have enough weight to move
it out of count and slid to the back of the four-foot.
Sormunen executed the hit and stayed in the house with
her last rock to score four.
Team Wright came roaring back in the eighth scoring two
and stealing another deuce in the ninth to pull within
one. Team Sormunen peeled every guard Wright put up in
the 10th end and Sormunen was able to take
out Wright’s count rock with her last rock.
Using the page playoff system, the #1 and #2 seeds play
in the first semifinal with the winner advancing to the
final and the loser playing the winner of a semifinal
between the #3 and #4 seeds to determine the second
finalist. Team Cassie Johnson will play Team Debbie
McCormick in the No. 1 vs. No. 2 match.
Games were played between Craig Brown, Scott Baird and
Brady Clark to determine final rankings for the men’s
semifinals. The Pete Fenson rink locked up the No. 1
seed after finishing 7-2 in the round robin. The Brown,
Baird and Clark teams all finished 6-3. Under the new
system, Brown played Clark in the first ranking game
after Baird received a bye based on a better performance
in the shootout held earlier in the week. Brown defeated
Clark, 9-2, in six ends. Team Clark will now be the No.
4 seed.
Brown secured the No. 2 seed and will face the Fenson
rink after defeating Baird, 11-8, in an extra end. Brown
stole two points in the ninth end after he was able to
protect two stones around the four-foot. Fenson tied the
game up in the 10th by placing two stones on
opposite sides of the house. Brown removed one leaving
Fenson an open draw for the deuce. In the extra end,
Fenson had a chance to steal after Matt Stevens caught
only a piece of a guard he was trying to peel leaving an
opportunity to hide a rock behind. Fenson took out one
of Brown’s count rocks but left his stone exposed. Brown
picked it out leaving Fenson with a draw but it came up
just inches short for count scoring three for Brown.
The semifinals are at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Friday, with the
women’s final at 10 a.m. Saturday and the men’s at 2
p.m. Saturday. Live action of the 2006 U.S. Olympic Team
Trials for Curling can be followed on the USA Curling
web site at
www.usacurl.org, including via an audiocast and
end-by-end scoring.
USA Curling is sponsored by AIT Worldwide Logistics and
AmerAust Technologies as well as by General Motors,
Chevron-Texaco and Bank of America through a joint
marketing program with the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Game scores:
Women’s tiebreaker: Sormunen 13, Wright 10
Men’s ranking game No. 1: Brown 9, Clark 2
Men’s ranking game No. 2: Brown 11, Baird 8 (extra end)
Women’s semifinalists:
1. Team Johnson: Cassie Johnson (Bemidji, Minn.),
Jamie Johnson (Bemidji), Jessica Schultz (Anchorage,
Alaska/Duluth, Minn.), Maureen Brunt (Portage, Wis.)
2. Team McCormick: Debbie McCormick (Rio, Wis.),
Allison Pottinger (Eden Prairie, Minn.), Ann Swisshelm
Silver (Chicago), Tracy Sachtjen (Lodi, Wis.)
3. Team Lank: Patti Lank (Lewiston, N.Y.), Erika
Brown (Oakville, Ontario/Madison, Wis.), Nicole
Joraanstad (Madison, Wis.), Natalie Nicholson (Bemidji,
Minn.)
4. Team Sormunen: Aileen Sormunen, Courtney
George, Amanda Jensen, Amanda McLean (all of Duluth,
Minn.)
Men’s semifinalists:
1. Team Fenson: Pete Fenson (Bemidji, Minn.),
Shawn Rojeski (Virginia, Minn.), Joe Polo (Cass Lake,
Minn.), John Shuster (Chisholm, Minn.)
2. Team Brown: Craig Brown (Madison, Wis.), Matt
Stevens (Bemidji, Minn.), John Dunlop (Wauwatosa, Wis.),
Bob Liapis (Bemidji), Cody Stevens (Bemidji)
3. Team Baird: Scott Baird, Eric Fenson, Mark
Haluptzok, Tim Johnson (all of Bemidji)
4. Team Clark: Brady Clark (Redmond, Wash.), Greg
Persinger (Anchorage, Alaska), Colin Hufman (Lynnwood,
Wash.), Ken Trask (Kirkland, Wash.), Doug Kauffman
(Lynnwood, Wash.)
(30)
For more information: Rick Patzke, USA Curling,
rickp@curlingrocks.net, 715-344-1199 |
