WAUSAU TIETGE BONSPIEL - Medford curling teams 2-2 at Tietge, earn a home split with DCE

WAUSAU TIETGE BONSPIEL

As the saying goes, curling is a game of inches. That came into play on Saturday for both of Medford’s boys and girls teams as they attempted to make their way through tough semifinal matches at the 71st Annual Tietge High School Bonspiel.

A total of 44 teams from around the state traveled to the Wausau Curling Center for the two-day competition held January 5 and 6.

Coach Stu Amundson said both teams remained competitive throughout the tournament as they faced tough opponents.

“Both teams represented Medford well,” he said.

The boys ended up conceding midday through the eighth end of the third event semifinal Saturday afternoon after trailing 7-3 against a strong Wausau West team. The concession came after it became mathematically impossible for Medford to score the points needed for a tie or win.

Medford scored one in the first end, but allowed Wausau West to take advantage of having hammer and answer back with a big three-point end in the second end. This put Medford down by two and attempting to play catch-up through the rest of the game. Medford was able to utilize hammer and score a point in the third end, only for Wausau West to score again in the fourth and fifth ends, making it 5-2 going into the sixth end. Medford scored again in the sixth making it a two-point game. However, Wausau West was able to use their hammer to good effect and score two making the score 7-3.

Medford skip Alex Wilson was on point through the game at times making the shots needed to reduce the number of Wausau West stones in count or to sneak through ports to get the point with the hammer stone.

While the boys were disappointed at advancing to the finals round in the event, the players said they were pleased that they were able to remain competitive against a team that had dominated them when faced against them earlier this season.

The boys ended their 2024 Tietge run with a 2-2 record for the weekend. They won against the Poynette II team 7-4 in the 8 a.m. draw on Friday and then went on to lose in the second round to Stevens Point 1 team 10-2. They were overmatched in that round and went to the do-or-die game against Appleton East in the third event where they got Appleton to concede after seven ends with a score of 8-2.

On the girls side, Medford girls faced off against the defending state championship team from Pardeeville on their first draw Friday morning. Despite some strong play by the girls they were outmatched by the older and more experienced team and conceded after the fifth end trailing 111. The girls faced the Marshfield II team in their second game and played a competitive contest leading 4-3 after the ffith end. The tables turned by the end as the Medford girls ended up down by two with hammer in the last end and narrowly missed getting the points needed for the win and the score ended 6-5.

Things took a turn for the girls on Saturday when they lost lead Kaya Fortin due to a family commitment and third Erica Brandner due to illness. In an emergency substitution, eighth grader Bella Lemke traded her hockey skates for a curling broom on the Saturday morning round so that the girls could continue in the tournament. This put freshman Stacey Dassow in the third position as the girls played three-handed against Wausau West.

Wausau West scored one in the first end, but Medford answered back with three in the second end and took a dominant lead with points in the third and fourth ends. In the fifth end, Wausau West scored two to bring the score to 5-3. Medford capitalized on having the hammer in the sixth end and added two to their score making it 7-3 at the end of six ends. Medford added to the lead in the seventh end, causing the Wausau West team’s skip to concede with score at 9-3.

In their final game of the tournament, the girls team was again turned upside down as Lemke needed to leave for a hockey match causing the Medford team to sub in two players from the Wausau West team in the front end positions as they faced the Marshfield III squad in the semifinal round in the fourth event. Marshfield laid four rocks in the first end to jump to a large lead, adding to it with two points in the second end and a point in the third end with Medford trailing 7-0. Medford rallied and got on the board in the fourth end with three points and stole two more points in the fifth end to close the gap to 7-5. Marshfield scored again in the sixth end and added two more in the seventh end with the score at 10-5 coming home. Despite having some rocks close, they ended up with a final score of 10-6.

“Unfortunately, they couldn’t pull it off, but they played a great weekend! Made tons of shots and worked through a lot of adversity. Way to go girls,” said assistant coach Jackie Lemke.

Tuesday’s matchup

Coming off of the busy Tietge weekend, the teams jumped back into their schedule, hosting D.C. Everest on Tuesday afternoon with mixed results.

Despite some solid shot calling by girls skip Caidyn Zenner, the rocks didn’t turn their way and they ended up losing 7-3.

On the boys side, the efforts were buoyed by an impressive triple take-out by Wilson in the third end which set the tone for the remainder of the contest. Everest scored one in the first, one in the third and one in the fifth. Medford scored one in the first, three in the fourth and three more in the sixth, and one more in the seventh end at which point the Evergreens conceded with the score at 8-3.

Medford’s Dawson Gasek gets back into his backstroke rhythm after a flip turn during Tuesday’s double-dual with Tomahawk and Antigo. Gasek was third in the event against Tomahawk and fourth against Antigo. MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS