Playoffs taking shape for Olympic trials in mixed doubles curling

The round-robin portion of the Olympic trials for mixed doubles curling ended Friday evening with half of the playoff field set. The team of Vicky Persinger/Chris Plys claimed the top seed for the four-team playoffs, while the Sarah Anderson/Korey Dropkin tandem seized the No. 2 seed.

Thanks to a logjam behind them in the standings, the rest of the field won't be settled until Saturday morning at Curl Mesabi in Eveleth. Four other teams—Cory Christensen/John Shuster, Matt Hamilton/Becca Hamilton, Tabitha Peterson/Joe Polo, and Jamie Sinclair/Rich Ruohonen—all finished the round robin with 5-4 records. Those teams will play tiebreakers to determine which two will stay in the hunt to represent the U.S. at the Beijing Olympics in February.

Peterson, of St. Paul, and Polo, of Duluth, will play Hamilton/Hamilton in one tiebreaker. Christensen and Shuster, of Duluth, will play Ruohonen, of Brooklyn Park, and Sinclair in the other. The winners move on to Saturday afternoon's playoffs.

In the Page playoff format, the third and fourth seeds play each other, with the loser eliminated. The other game pits Persinger/Plys against Anderson/Dropkin, with the winner moving directly into Sunday evening's final.

The winner of the 3-4 game will play the loser of the 1-2 game in a Sunday morning semifinal to determine the other finalist.

Plys, of Duluth, and Persinger were upset in their final match of the round robin but finished with a 6-3 record. Anderson, of Minneapolis, and Dropkin, of Duluth, also finished 6-3. Persinger/Plys earned the No. 1 seed by winning the teams' head-to-head matchup in the round robin.

"We had a tough game to end the round robin,'' Persinger said. "But we played a really good second half. Every game is a battle. We'll come out firing (Saturday), and hopefully, that will be enough.''

While a champion will be crowned Sunday, the winning team at the trials is not assured of competing in Beijing. The U.S. has not yet qualified for a place in the Olympic field, so the victors must play in an Olympic qualifier Dec. 5-9 in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. The top two finishers in the 14-team field will move on to the Winter Games.

None of the 10 teams at the Olympic trials had been eliminated from playoff contention when play began Friday. With two draws remaining in the round robin, two teams—Anderson/Dropkin and Persinger/Plys—sat atop the standings with 5-2 records. Three other pairs stood at 4-3, and three more had 3-4 records.

Persinger and Plys were the first to secure a playoff berth. After winning their first three games of the trials, they defeated Monica Walker and Alex Leichter 6-5 in the Friday afternoon session for their sixth victory.

They stumbled Friday night against Madison Bear and Andrew Stopera, who sat near the bottom of the standings. Bear/Stopera rolled to a 6-1 lead and held on for an 8-6 victory. That allowed Anderson/Dropkin to pull into a tie for first place with an 8-3 win over Sinclair/Ruohonen in their round-robin finale.

Another upset prevented the Christensen/Shuster team from reaching the six-victory mark and clinching a playoff berth. After defeating Anderson/Dropkin 11-3 on Friday afternoon for their fifth consecutive win, Christensen/Shuster fell to Walker/Leichter, 11-7.