Shuster rink claims sixth national curling championship
Feb. 11—DENVER — After a week at the U.S. national curling championships at the Denver Coliseum, the teams that most recently bore the title "Team USA" in major international competition retained their crowns for this spring's World Championships, starting with the rink of Olympic champion John Shuster.
The Superior native skipped his team to a sixth national championship and fifth in eight years by winning Saturday's championship 8-3 over Team Danny Casper in the third meeting between the teams at this week's bonspiel. Casper's rink claimed a big 10-3 win in pool play, but Shuster's team prevailed 8-5 in the 1-vs.-2 Page playoff.
Team Shuster led from wire to wire, scoring two in the opening end and stealing one in the the fourth. Casper, based in Chaska, Minnesota, finally got on the board in the fifth with a single. Shuster notched a deuce in the sixth end for a 5-1 lead, and though Casper cut it in half with what turned out to be his side's only multi-point end of the day, a three in the eighth for Shuster led the top-seeded challengers to concede after eight ends.
In addition to three championships won as parts of other teams in the 2000s, Shuster won his first national championship as a skip in 2009, the last time the national championship took place in Colorado (Broomfield). His team has since won national titles in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020. Teammates John Landsteiner of Duluth and Matt Hamilton of McFarland, Wisconsin have been with him for five, while third Chris Plys of Duluth has now been on three national championship teams.
The victory entitles Shuster's rink to represent the United States at this year's curling World Championships, to take place in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada from April 1-9. This will be Shuster's seventh World Championship as a skip, with his best finish, a bronze medal, coming in 2016.
Tabitha Peterson of Eagan, Minnesota and her team, which includes Duluth's Cory Thiesse, won its third national championship on Saturday in Denver, knocking off Delaney Strouse's rink 8-5.
Peterson's double-takeout netted her team three points in the ninth end to break a 5-5 tie, and after her team successfully defended the house in the ensuing end, led to Strouse's resignation. Team Peterson won all nine games it played in the tournament.
Thiesse (nee Christensen) is in her first season on Peterson's team after a team she skipped won the 2021 championship in a bio-secured bubble in Wausau, Wisconsin and later finished runner-up to Peterson's at the 2022 Olympic Trials.
Team Peterson, which also includes Becca Hamilton of McFarland, Wisconsin and Peterson's sister Tara, also of Eagan, will represent the United States at the World Championships, to take place from March 18-26 in Sandviken, Sweden. This will be Thiesse's second Worlds as a playing member after the team she skipped finished fifth in 2022.
The subheadline was edited at 11:30 p.m. on Feb. 11 to correct the spelling of Cory Thiesse's surname. It was originally posted at 8:56 p.m. The News Tribune regrets the error.
