Curling teams get one state win apiece

WISCONSIN HIGH SCHOOL CURLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

The Medford girls curling team ended on a high note as it picked up its first win of the season in its final game of the season at the 2023 Wisconsin High School State Championships, held Friday and Saturday at the Wausau Curling Center.

The girls defeated Marshfield 8-4 to get their first win of the tournament and of the season. The team has rapidly improved throughout the season. The team was challenged from experience being made up of a sophomore and two freshmen and also in numbers with the team curling three-handed during the season.

In order to participate in the state championship, Hannah Fleegel joined the team and threw the opening two rocks in the first game Friday morning. The boys faced a similar challenge being three-handed in a sport with a fourmember team. Lucas Liske pitched in to throw the first two rocks in the opening game for the boys team.

In the state tournament, the schools are split into four pools with four teams each and had a three-game round robin style with the teams with the best record from each pool advancing into a semifinal round. The semifinal winners then advanced to a finals round held Saturday evening.

In the girls semifinals, Poynette beat Portage and Stevens Point beat Wausau West. In the finals Poynette defended their state title by defeating Stevens Point.

In the boys semifinal, Portage beat Wausau West and Stevens Point defeated Poynette. In the boys final Stevens Point beat Portage for the state title.

Pool play

Medford boys came into the tournament seeded eighth out of 16. The team came in with a 10-7 record for the regular season and was placed in a pool that included top-seeded Portage I, ninthseeded Pardeeville and 16th-seeded D.C. Everest II. Medford had not faced any of those teams during the season.

The boys got off to a rough start on Friday morning against an evenly matched Pardeeville squad taking time to adjust to the Wausau Curling Center ice conditions.

Throughout the season, the boys under senior skip Brett Lundy have not been afraid to take risks, a strategy that had mixed success during the state tournament. In the first end, Medford was sitting with one rock in count with Lundy attempting to bring his second rock through a port to score two. While the strategy was sound, the rock instead hit one of the Pardeeville’s guards advancing it giving the point to Pardeeville.

Pardeeville was able to capitalize on Medford’s bad luck adding to a lead that grew to 7-1 after Pardeeville laid five rocks in the fourth end.

Medford rallied and answered back with five rocks of its own, and narrowly missing getting a sixth, the next end bringing the score to 7-6 and tying the games up coming into the 7th end. Medford was unable to capitalize on having hammer and ended up losing 9-8.

In their second round of play, this time against the DC Everest II team, Medford picked up its tournament win with a 9-7 score setting up a do-or-die match against the top-ranked Portage team during the 8 a.m. draw on Saturday morning. Because Portage had beaten Pardeeville in the second round of play, a win would have created a shoot-off to determine who would advance.

However, the senior-dominated Portage team showed why it had the top ranking coming into the game capitalizing on any opening Medford allowed it.

An attempt to advance a third rock ended up giving Portage a three point lead to start the contest. Portage returned the favor the next end attempting to guard and ending up advancing a Medford rock to make the score 3-1.

In the third end, Medford cleaned out the house before Portage threw through it to blank the end and keep hammer coming home on the fourth end. Portage capitalized on having hammer and was able to advance their lead to 6-1.

Adding another four rocks the following end to make the score 10-1. Medford was not giving up however, and answered back with two rocks in the sixth end and one in the seventh before shaking hands and conceding with the score at 10-4.

On the girls side, Medford faced defending state champions Poynette in the first game losing 8-2. However, Medford played strong throughout the contest including some impressive multi-rock takeouts by skip Caidyn Zenner, who as only a freshman showed that she has a keen eye and the ability to make clutch plays.

In their second game of the pool competition, put up a fight against Pardeeville with Pardeeville ultimately winning 8-5.

Medford held Pardeeville from laying big ends, but allowed the team to get to a 5-0 lead before getting on the board. Medford scored two points in back to back ends to bring the score to 5-4. Pardeeville ended up scoring three to secure the 8-5 win.

With all three members of the girls team underclassmen, there is plenty of time for them to gain experience and build. Goals will be to get a few more players to be able to field a full four-person team.

On the boys side, there will be rebuilding as Lundy graduates leaving juniors Alex Wilson and Nathan Willman to continue and recruit additional players for next year’s squad.

Medford’s Nathan Willman and Alex Wilson team up to sweep this rock into the house during the Raiders’ opening game with Pardeeville Friday morning at the state championships.BRIAN WILSON/THE STAR NEWS

Medford skip Caidyn Zenner watches her timer while Adalyn Dittrich sweeps a rock thrown by Erica Brandner into the house during state championship competition on Friday.BRIAN WILSON/THE STAR NEWS