EVERETT — It came down to the last rock of the event, but John Shuster and his team polished off a perfect USA Curling National Championships.
Shuster drew to the four-foot with the last shot of the 10th end to score the winning point, and his team defeated Todd Birr 8-7 to claim the men’s title and finish undefeated at the USA Curling National Championships at Xfinity Arena.
Shuster’s title, the sixth of his career and third as skip, was one of two championships awarded Saturday. In the women’s final Jamie Sinclair knocked off Nina Roth 6-4 to claim her first national title.
Team Shuster recovered from surrendering four in the fourth end of the men’s final, scoring six of the match’s final eight points. It completed a week in which Team Shuster — which includes Tyler George, Matt Hamilton and John Landsteiner — won all 11 of its games.
The last win came courtesy of Shuster’s winning shot. Tied 7-7 and faced with two Team Birr stones touching the four-foot, Shuster needed to draw fully into the four-foot to claim the title.
Shuster, a 34-year-old from Superior, Wisconsin, was a tad heavy with his shot, but it came to a stop just closer to the pin than Birr’s closest stone to give Team Shuster the title.
“You dream of a draw to the four-foot to win a national championship,” Shuster said. “After Landsteiner made those two ticks [early in the 10th end to set up the win] you hope it doesn’t have to be quite that good. But we threw that shot all week in with confidence, I think it was the third time we’ve done it this week.”
Early on it looked like Team Shuster, the undefeated top seed, was in trouble against third-seeded Team Birr.
Shuster had a bad miss with his last stone in the fourth end, giving Birr a simple draw into the rings to score four and take a 5-2 lead.
But Team Birr returned the favor in the seventh. Leading 6-4, Birr failed to move a Shuster stone with his last shot, giving Shuster a draw to score three and take a 7-6 lead. Then Team Shuster forced Birr to take one in the eighth to tie it and blanked the ninth to take the hammer into the 10th. Having the final shot of the 10th made all the difference.
“We’re not a team that really panics when we get down a few points,” George said. “Once we got it down to two with [the hammer] we knew we were within range. We made a couple really nice finesse shots, got the angles on our sides, made them play a line [Birr] was a little uncomfortable with, placed the rocks really good, got the miss that we needed and finally started executing.”
Team Shuster was actually outcurled by Team Birr 84 percent to 80 percent, but Shuster made up for it himself by outcurling his opposing skip 81-73 percent.
Team Shuster will represent the U.S. at the World Men’s Curling Championships in April in Edmonton, Alberta, having clinched that spot prior to the final.
In the women’s final Sinclair, a 24-year-old from St. Paul, Minnesota, made clutch shots down the stretch to lift her team to the title.
“It’a an amazing feeling,” Sinclair said about her first national championship. “This is what we’ve been working on all year. To just have that pay off, I’m just shaking. It’s a real good feeling.”
Sinclair came into the championship match as the top seed, having finished 6-1 in round-robin play to earn an automatic berth into the final. Roth, the No. 2 seed and the skip of the 2014 national championship team, reached the final by defeating Cassie Potter 8-1 the previous day in the semifinal match.
The final was largely a conservative affair early, with Team Sinclair taking a 5-3 lead going into the eighth end. In the eighth Team Roth seemed in good position to score at least two to either tie the score or take the lead. However, Sinclair first executed a precision double to remove two Roth stones, then played a perfect freeze to a Roth stone to force Roth to settle for one.
Then Sinclair made an even better shot to close out the ninth. Team Roth was sitting three with Sinclair having little room to work with. However, Sinclair found the only path through the traffic and put perfect weight on the shot to catch a piece of the button and score the point that made it 6-4 with one end remaining.
“We knew that spot was tough, because I had gone there earlier in the end,” Monica Walker, who throws lead for Team Sinclair, said about Sinclair’s shot in the ninth, which Walker helped sweep into position. “I think we just knew what we had to throw, we got it there and it worked out perfect. She threw a great shot.”
Team Sinclair, which also consists of Alex Carlson and Vicky Persinger, then kept rocks out of play in the 10th end to prevent Team Roth the opportunity of scoring more than one, thus securing its victory.
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