With one game remaining in the round robin, Alaska (5-3) can clinch the final semifinal berth with a win over Washington tonight. A loss will create a tiebreaker game with the winner of the match between Wisconsin (4-4) and Michigan (4-4).
To read the complete press release, click on the PDF below.
Wisconsin's Steve Day rink and Alaska's Steve Shuttleworth will face off in a sudden-death tiebreaker at 9 a.m. CT Friday. The winner will face No. 1 seed Washington after Brady Clark's team locked down the No. 1 semifinal spot by finishing the round robin with a 9-5 win over Alaska for an 8-1 record.
Day (Madison, Wis.) and teammates Emilia Juocys (Chicago), Dan Wiza (Waunakee, Wis.) and Heather Van Sistine (Hartland, Wis.) defeated Michigan's Christopher Doremus rink, 6-4, to keep their playoff hopes alive.
To read the complete pres release, click on the PDF below.
"We're thrilled to play another game. We want to play a bunch more games. We want to play, like, a whole bunch more," Team USA skip Allison Pottinger emphasized.
Pottinger (Eden Prairie, Minn.), Nicole Joraanstad (Verona, Wis.), Natalie Nicholson (Bemidji, Minn.) and Tabitha Peterson (Eagan, Minn.) controlled the entire match against Denmark's Lene Nielsen and went on to earn an 8-5 victory. They will face Canada's Heather Nedohin in the tiebreaker match at 2 p.m. MT tomorrow. The winner moves on to play in the Page Playoff 3-4 game against Korea at 1 p.m. Saturday. Three teams tied for first place with 8-3 records - Korea, Sweden and Switzerland. Based on head-to-head, the teams were all 1-1 against one another so they were seeded based on the cumulative pre-game draw shot challenge. Sweden and Switzerland will square off in the Page 1-2 playoff game at 7 tomorrow night.
To read the complete press release, click on the PDF below.
The 10-1 win over Italy's Diana Gaspari improves Team USA's Allison Pottinger (Eden Prairie, Minn.), Nicole Joraanstad (Verona, Wis.), Natalie Nicholson (Bemidji, Minn.) and Tabitha Peterson (Eagan, Minn.) to 3-4 in the 11-game round robin standings.
The lopsided victory pushes the American win streak to three straight. "It does feel good," Nicholson said about the win. "I feel like we've been playing well. I think it's just a matter of focusing on one game at a time. All we can do is continue to do our best and improve each game, finish out strong, and that's all we can do. You hate to hope other teams help you out, but you can't count on it so you have to try to do the best yourself and deal with it."
Gaspari, 27, playing in her eighth world championship, had an off night and turned in a 64 percent shooting average in comparison to her counterpart Pottinger, who dialed in a 91 percent.
To read the complete press release, click on the PDF below.
Team USA's victory over the Czech Republic today at the Enmax Centre moved them up to fifth place in the round robin and evened their record at 4-4. Four teams are tied for first place with 6-2 records - Canada, Korea, Sweden and Switzerland. Of the pack-leaders, the Americans have the Swedes left on their round robin schedule. That game will be 9 a.m. Thursday and will be live on the webstream at http://www.universalsports.com/curling/.
"We know each game is really important, and we've worked really hard at staying focused on the process. All that matters now is the first end of the next game. We cannot afford to get ahead of ourselves. It's too soon for that," said Pottinger, who is making her 11th world championship appearance.
To read the complete press release, click on the PDF below.
Clark (Lynnwood, Wash.) and teammates Cristin Clark (Lynnwood, Wash.), Sean Beighton (Seattle) and Bev Walter (Seattle) earned a 9-6 win over California's Lyle Sieg rink, which was the first loss for California (4-2) since its opening match. With the victory, Washington moves to 6-0 with three games left in the round robin.
To read the complete press release, click on the PDF below.
Team USA's Allison Pottinger (Eden Prairie, Minn.), Nicole Joraanstad (Verona, Wis.), Natalie Nicholson (Bemidji, Minn.) and Tabitha Peterson (Eagan, Minn.) continuously pressured Russia's Anna Sidorova rink, which propelled them to a 7-2 victory.
With the win, the U.S. is now 5-4 in the round robin standings with two games remaining. The American ladies finish out the round robin tomorrow with a 9 a.m. match against Sweden (6-2) and play Denmark (4-4) in the night session. The USA-Sweden match-up will air live on the webstream via Universal Sports at http://www.universalsports.com/curling/.
"We're capitalizing on opportunities out there on the ice," said Joraanstad, 31, who is playing in her seventh women's world championship. "When we have an opportunity when we're already sitting one and we can really sink something in there and make it tough on them to play a tougher shot for even getting one. We're just really seizing those opportunities and putting rocks in the right place and not leaving things behind t-line because that can always put you in jeopardy."
To read the complete press release, click on the PDF below.
With Germany's Melanie Robillard rink threatening to steal the win, USA skip Allison Pottinger unloaded her most important shot of the week so far when she executed a perfect rub on her own stone into the four-foot.
"They were sitting two so we had to feather that rock just a little bit. That's why there was so much 'yes, no, yes no' because if we hit too much of it straight back and not enough of it sideways," said Team USA vice skip Nicole Joraanstad. "When I saw it after I was pretty sure we were one, but it's always good to measure when it's close."
The win improves Pottinger (Eden Prairie, Minn.), Joraanstad (Verona, Wis.), Natalie Nicholson (Bemidji, Minn.) and Tabitha Peterson (Eagan, Minn.) to 2-4 in the 11-game round robin standings, which at this point puts Team USA in a five-way tie for eighth place.
"I mean, have you seen? Every game out there is coming down to the last end. I feel like every team is right in the mix this week. So, definitely. We just have to roll off some wins. We know we put ourselves behind the eight-ball, but we just need to roll off some wins and let the chips fall as they may," Pottinger said when asked if her team was still in the competition.
To read the complete press release, click on the PDF below. After an unexpected 0-4 start, the U.S. has now won two in a row.
