Congratulations to Teams Murray (Coyotes) and Thangadurai (San Francisco Bay Area) on earning the silver and bronze medals, respectively, at the USA Curling Club National Championship this past weekend! And kudos to Team Walsh (San Francisco Bay Area) on their quarterfinal finish.
MoPac had a strong showing at this year’s event with all three teams – Murray (3-2 record), Thangadurai (4-1 record), and Walsh (4-1 record) – making the playoffs after the round robin.
In the quarterfinals, Team Walsh (Sarah Walsh, Kate Garfinkel, Karina Treynor, Kim Chapin) were defeated by eventual silver medalists, Team Berg (Minnesota, Bemidji) ending their run at the event. Team Thangadurai (Subasthika Thangadurai, Claire Blaske, Abby Lin, Amy Verway-Cohen) met Team Mariano (PNW, Seattle) and took the win after a dramatic ending with Team Mariano running out of time on their thinking clock with the final stone in the 8th end (Thangadurai was sitting 2 before the last stone was thrown). On the men’s side, Team Murray (Sean Murray, Mike Siggins, Adam Endicott, Eric Kowal) won with a one-point lead in a close game against Team Bond (PNW).
In the semifinals, Thangadurai faced former Olympian, Nina Roth and her team out of Wisconsin in a tight game, needing an extra end to determine who would go on to the championship game. Unfortunately, Roth was able to convert the hammer in the 9th for the win, sending Thangadurai into the bronze medal match against Team Yaple (Midwest). In a back and forth game, Thangadurai broke the game open in the 5th with a steal of 4. They continued their strong play with converting hammer in the 8th to clench the bronze medal with an 8-3 win.
Team Murray faced Team Dolan (Minnesota) in their semi-final match, winning 7-5 in 8 ends to punch their ticket into the championship game. Guaranteed a medal, they faced the hometown team from Chaska, Team Caldwell. Murray started off with steals in the first 2 ends to put them up 2-0, but were faced with pressure from Caldwell the rest of the game. Murray had a difficult triple attempt with his last in the 8th to tie the game and force an extra, but was unable to connect to the stone in the back of the house, resulting in a Caldwell victory. Team Murray proudly took home the silver after a great week.
The strong finishes of Teams Murray and Thangadurai add to the total points earned by the region towards the Regions Cup, a new award created by USA Curling to present to the region with the most points earned at regional-based national championship events. Points earned by Team Walsh do not count towards the cumulative points as only the points from the highest ranked team from a region count towards the total.
Congrats to our three MoPac teams on a great week and being wonderful representatives of their clubs and our region!
