Dropkin, Peterson lift USA Curling championships

DULUTH — Curling stones are heavy, roughly 42 pounds of dense granite from a single island in Scotland.

The trophies that go to USA Curling’s men’s and women’s champions are heavier still, recently refurbished triple-decker towers that require many hands just to hold up.

But winning one tends to make everything lighter, as evidenced by the heights Korey Dropkin’s broom reached after the Duluth Curling Club-based skip clinched a national championship with his team at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center Arena on Sunday. Dropkin came to Duluth from Massachusetts for college with ambitions of curling at the highest level. For the second time, he’s there.

“It’s a moment that I’ve dreamed about being in, it’s a moment that I’ve had within reach and not obtained. Being in this moment today in front of the Duluth community, it’s just a blessing, and I’m just so grateful to be able to win this,” he said.

It took an extra 11th end, which concluded after Dropkin’s shot knocked one of Team Daniel Casper’s stones on to the other and away from the center for a winning point in a 7-6 decision. Several brooms went flying in celebration, one to the side, one up the rink and Dropkin’s nearly halfway to the rafters.

Vice-skip Tom Howell’s precise peel shot removed a red rock from play and set up Dropkin’s game-winner two throws later. Dropkin, whose rink won the 2021 title with a slightly different lineup, described it as the kind of shot he’d make “80 percent” or more but under championship circumstances, there are no guarantees, which is probably why he was so relieved that it worked.

“In that pressure moment, it’s a shot for the national championship, so you never know what’s gonna happen,” he said.

The national title, and with it a ticket to the 2025 World Championships this spring in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, for Dropkin, Howell, Andrew Stopera and Mark Fenner, required some heavy lifting of the metaphorical variety.

Team Dropkin was down 4-1 against a Casper rink that swept through its seven round-robin games. Team Casper beat them 9-3 on Friday in the last round-robin game and 7-4 in the 1 vs. 2 playoff on Saturday afternoon.

Gains of two points in ends five and seven tied the game.

Casper attempted a bold angled shot that could have given him a stranglehold at the end of the ninth end. It didn’t pan out, allowing Dropkin to take a 6-5 lead into the 10th. At the end of that one, Casper decided not to go for an even riskier play and opted for the tie.

For some time, including a 2021 national championship, Dropkin’s rink has portrayed themselves as the “Young Bucks” of USA Curling, but Casper, a Briarcliff Manor, New York native who curls out of the Chaska Curling Club, is 23, six years younger than Dropkin, and it’s hard not to believe that his day is coming.

“Obviously, it’s devastating now, but realistically we had a great week and we know we are more than capable of winning this thing many times,” Casper said.

Sure, Tabitha Peterson’s rink was two-time defending national champions, playing in their home state, and in the case of vice-skip Cory Thiesse, in her hometown. But in this stage of life and curling, there aren’t many sure things.

Team Peterson proved to be one of them, holding off a strong effort from a young but determined Team Elizabeth Cousins 7-6 in an extra 11th end.

Both Tabitha Peterson (Minneapolis) and her sister and second Tara (Shoreview), have given birth since the summer, with Tabitha only recently returning to the ice on a regular basis. Taylor Anderson-Heide of Minneapolis joined the team for the first time this season and the lineup has shuffled several times depending upon circumstances.

The fans at the DECC Arena probably couldn’t tell, as the defending champions were nearly unassailable and will move on to a third consecutive World Championship, in South Korea in about six weeks’ time.

“They held down the fort as best they could and just coming through and winning this is just kind of icing on the cake for, I’ll say, a rollercoaster of a season,” Tabitha Peterson said.

The Peterson and Cousins rinks matched each other practically shot for shot, with the only difference between the two through eight ends coming when Peterson scored two in the fifth, then forced Cousins to settle for one in the sixth.

“We were in control for most of the game for sure. We felt like we were putting rocks in good positions but again, they played really well and definitely tested us and we had to be on our ‘A’ game for sure,” Thiesse said.

Peterson, holding a 6-5 lead in the 10th, couldn’t dislodge a Cousins stone enough to avoid surrendering one and the tie, but in the 11th, Cousins needed to move one of Peterson’s in a similar scenario and couldn’t, clinching the title for Peterson.

Despite the finish, Cousins and her team, widely sourced (the four members reside in four different states) and young (all 27 or younger), were thrilled with what is probably their best performance as a group.

“I’m so, so proud of the team and I know that we can do even better than this, so I’m proud and I know the team is also proud,” Cousins said.

Team Peterson didn’t have it easy on the ice this week either. Coming in as defending champions makes anyone an automatic target and playing in one’s home state has certain challenges, or in Thiesse’s case, benefits.

“It’s very special, and I knew that going into the week, and just to have so many people here cheering … now I’m gonna get emotional … yeah, it’s very special,” Thiesse said.