Duluth’s Team Dropkin wins USA Curling men’s national title; Eagan sisters' rink takes women’s championship

DULUTH - Team Dropkin won the USA Curling men’s national championship Sunday with a tricky shot its skip admitted he might not make every time.

The rock was parked in the back of the button with their opponent’s directly in front of it. Team Dropkin threw its final rock, angling it and adding enough weight to move Team Casper’s with a nick to its left side. That sent it out of the house yet barely moved Team Dropkin’s rock.

The tiebreaking moment in the 11th end gave the home team an 8-6 win, and Team Dropkin advanced to the World Curling Championships in March in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

In the women’s competition, Team Peterson, with Eagan sisters Tabitha and Tara Peterson, won its third consecutive national championship.

Thomas Howell celebrated the men’s championship by throwing his broom; Korey Dropkin clenched his fists and roared.

“It’s a tough shot, and we barely made it,” Dropkin said.

Dropkin said he thinks he could make the shot 80% of the time, but under the pressure of a national championship …

“You never know what’s going to happen,” he said.

It was the first national title for the rink that plays out of the Duluth Curling Club, also home to Olympic champion Team Shuster, which finished with a bronze medal after it was knocked out in the semifinals Saturday night at the DECC Arena.

Shuster’s squad, playing in Duluth for the first time since 1999 and competing in Minnesota for the first time since Hibbing hosted in 2008, has long ruled this tournament. Shuster has won six times since 2015.

Team Dropkin, a crew its skip said is as close as brothers, is known as “Young Bucks.” Fans yell it, write it on signs and wear it on branded hats. Its skip moved here from the East Coast to attend Minnesota Duluth, one of three schools in Minnesota he applied to. He came with an already solid curling start. He remembers Team Shuster winning the bronze medal in Turin, Italy, in 2008 and was in the audience at the Duluth Curling Club in the early morning when Team Shuster won its gold medal at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang.

“And you’re just like, ‘Oh, my God. We can do that. Yeah, I want to do that someday,’ ” Dropkin said.

Team Casper, based in Minneapolis, reached the final undefeated in seven games.

“Korey made an awesome shot to win it,” skip Danny Casper said. “We’ve played them a lot of times in the past few years, and they’re obviously a great team. Realistically we had a great week and we know we are more than capable of winning this thing many times.”

The women’s final also went to an extra end before Team Peterson defeated New Hampshire-based Team Cousins 7-6.

The defending champions controlled most of the match, but Team Cousins tied it in the 10th end. In the 11th, Team Peterson threw its first rock to the center of the button, then spent the rest of the end playing defense, knocking rocks out of play. In its final throw, Team Cousins connected with Team Peterson’s strategically placed rock but not enough to take the point.

“Relief,” skip Tabitha Peterson, a two-time Olympian, said of the close call that fell in her rink’s favor.

“I didn’t know who was closer,” opponent Elizabeth Cousins said.

Team Peterson advances to the World Women’s Curling Championship in South Korea in March.

The nationals were Tabitha Peterson’s first competition back after giving birth. Tara Peterson also had a baby, in September. In their absences, their teammates “really held down the fort,” Tabitha Peterson said.

Earlier in this weeklong competition, these teams faced off and Team Peterson won handily, 14-4. It was one of two losses Team Cousins suffered before reaching the final.

“That was a really low low for the team, or at least for me,” Cousins said. “So being able to crawl out of that and continue winning throughout the week and getting to play in the final game was all perseverance, so that’s something I’m going to remember.”