|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb. 26, 2005
Bemidji’s Johnson rink on
to Olympic Games
(MADISON, Wis.) – The childhood dreams of four young
ladies became reality
Saturday afternoon as the Cassie Johnson rink of
Bemidji, Minn., won the 2006 U.S. Olympic Team Trials
defeating the Debbie McCormick rink, 5-4.
Johnson (Bemidji, Minn.) and teammates Jamie Johnson
(Bemidji), Jessica Schultz (Duluth, Minn./Anchorage,
Alaska) and Maureen Brunt (Portage, Wis.) will represent
the USA at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games next February
in Torino, Italy.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” said Johnson, 23, a
student at Bemidji State University. “All week we’ve
looked at the banners around the ice and knew what we
were playing for and we played awesome this week. We
couldn’t have done it any better.”
The Johnson and McCormick rinks put on an impressive
display of shot-making for the fans in the standing-room
only viewing area at the Madison Curling Club.
The game started out with both teams patiently waiting
to score two points instead of settling for one. Team
McCormick started the game with the hammer advantage and
chose to blank the first two ends in search of the
deuce. In the third, McCormick (Rio, Wis.) and teammates
Allison Pottinger (Eden Prairie, Minn.), Ann Swisshelm
Silver (Chicago) and Tracy Sachtjen (Lodi, Wis.) had to
settle for one when McCormick missed a raise to bring
two rocks into count.
The Johnson rink grabbed momentum in the fourth end when
Johnson tapped one of her stones into McCormick’s shot
rock and kept her shooter in the rings.
“The fourth end was a great confidence-builder for us,”
Cassie Johnson said. “I think playing last night against
Patti (Lank) really got us ready for today.” Team
Johnson lost to McCormick in the No. 1 vs. No. 2 game
yesterday and had to beat 2004 national champion Lank
rink to qualify for today’s final.
McCormick blanked the fifth end and once again had to
settle for one to tie the game at 2-2 when she wasn’t
able to hit and roll behind a guard. “We had some
chances and weren’t able to execute,” Pottinger said.
“We knew it was going to be a close game.”
After blanking the seventh end, Johnson drew down
through a port guided by great sweeping call by her
sister Jamie to score two and really put the pressure on
Team McCormick leading 4-2 going into the ninth end.
“We’ve proved ourselves by beating the top-ranked teams
here and we know we can play with the best of them,”
Johnson said.
Team McCormick, who made U.S. curling history in 2003
when they became the first U.S. women’s team to win the
world championship, took the challenge head-on.
Team Johnson looked poised to steal three in the ninth
when McCormick drew the button for one to avoid what may
have been the game-breaker.
In the 10th end, Team Johnson got into a bind
when vice skip Jamie Johnson’s peel of a top guard sent
the rock sailing into a rock just outside of the rings
that knocked it back into play. Both skips struggled
with their first rocks as McCormick’s attempt to put a
guard up to protect her shot rock went a little too
deep. Johnson’s tried to play a freeze to the shot rock
but ended up wide and slid through the house. McCormick
then drew down to freeze right next to her other rock.
Johnson took one out but couldn’t keep her shooter in
for count giving McCormick a steal of one and forced an
extra end.
In the extra end, the two skips exchanged similar shots
as they picked out one another’s count rocks. However,
for Johnson having the last rock sealed the team’s trip
to Italy next winter wearing Team USA on their backs.
Johnson calmly drew down for a piece of the button to
out-count McCormick.
“We knew what we needed to do, and that we’d have
chances. Cassie made a great shot for the win,” said
McCormick, a two-time Olympian (1998, 2002). “We played
a good game, and they played a good game. We weren’t
ever worried, but they seemed to have the momentum.”
Team Johnson will be nominated to the U.S. Olympic
Committee as curling’s Team USA.
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.
(30)
For more information: Rick Patzke, USA Curling,
rickp@curlingrocks.net, 715-344-1199 |
