OGDEN -- The U.S. Curling Association crowned two new national champions Saturday as the women's team from Nebraska and the Wisconsin 3 men's rink both scored impressive three-rock victories to win their respective titles.
Nebraska pounced on defending national women's champion Team USA -- also the U.S. Olympics team -- for two four-point ends early in the gold medal round and then held off a steady comeback attempt that left the score at 10-9 after nine ends.But Nebraska skip Amy Wright delivered the national title on the hammer (final shot) in the 10th end, scoring two points with a clean take-out shot to give her rink a 12-9 victory.
In the all-Wisconsin men's final, Wisconsin 1 skip Paul Pustovar sent an open draw shot -- his first stone in the 10th end -- clean through the house to give in-state rival Wisconsin 3 its first national title.
That miss by the usually sure-handed Pustovar left Wisconsin 1 three rocks down with one rock to play, while Wisconsin 3 had counters in the house and skip Craig Brown in possession of the final hammer of the game.
Since the game was mathematically out of reach, it wasn't necessary to play the last two rocks, and Wisconsin 3 finished with a 6-4 victory.
Those final games concluded an eight-day run of world-class play at the 2000 U.S. National Curling Championships at the Weber County Ice Sheet.
About 800 people turned out to watch the championship round Saturday, and they weren't disappointed as 16 of America's finest curlers treated the crowd to a string of exceptional shots and a pair of edge-of-your-seat contests that weren't decided until the 10th and final end.
Nebraska and Wisconsin 3 will now represent the United States at the World Curling Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, April 1-9, and will get automatic berths in the curling trials for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
For Wright, Nebraska's win took some of the sting out of the defeat her team suffered in the 1999 national finals at the hands of Team USA. That contest ended early and ugly after six ends with Nebraska losing 10-0.
But this year's Nebraska unit looked strong and confident from the opening ends of the round-robin preliminaries, also defeating Team USA in their first meeting earlier in the week.
"I think it's every curler's dream to have the shot in hand to win a national or world" title, said Wright, after defeating a gritty opponent that won the silver medal in the 1999 world championships. "I not only prepared the entire year for that shot, but probably my entire life.
"I honestly had a dream last night that I had a shot in hand to win the nationals," she added. "So when I stepped in the hack, all I could think about was, 'I've done this already . . . I've made this shot'."
Team USA didn't make it easy, despite the fact that Nebraska had scored four points in the first and fourth ends to lead 9-1 with six frames left. The Patti Lank rink gradually chipped away at the Nebraska lead, stealing the sixth and seventh ends to draw within one rock at 10-9 after nine.
Playing to take out a Nebraska counter in her first shot of the 10th end, Lank got a tap-back on the opposing rock and rolled under the cover of her guard. Wright answered by raising one of her guard stones into the house to take out the Team USA rock out of play.
Lank had one more chance to tap out the Nebraska rock and roll under the cover of a guard. She got the tap, but the roll never materialized and Wright used her hammer for an open take-out that put away the title.
In men's play, it was a close contest throughout as the Wisconsin teams found themselves knotted 5-5 at the mid-point break. Wisconsin 3 pulled away 4-2 in the sixth end on the strength of an exciting shot by Brown as he used the hammer for a "split" -- raising a guard stone into the house and rolling in his rock in for a second point.
Pustovar used a clean draw to put his seventh end hammer on the button and tighten the score at 4-3, only to see Brown score a point with a similar final shot in the eighth and then steal the ninth end when Pustovar's hammer narrowly missed a double take-out.
That left the score 6-3 going into the 10th end, where Pustovar sent a fairly routine clean draw past the tee and out of play on his first rock to give the rival team a victory.
Earlier in the week, the 25-year-old Brown had been concerned his team was "not playing our best . . . but just playing good enough to get by."
In fact, Pustovar's team finished with a tournament-best 11-2 record for the week and had beaten Wisconsin 3 in the Badger State championship recently. That forced Brown's rink to qualify for the nationals by prevailing in a "Second Chance" tournament that is analogous to a wild card playoff.
But the Brown team, with an average age of about 24, hit its shots when they counted to defeat the same Pustovar rink that won the 1998 national championship.
"Hopefully, we can continue this once we go to Glasgow," said Brown.
U.S. Curling Association writer Rick Patzke contributed to this story.