WAUSAU, WISCONSIN—Coach Greg Major and his ladies curling rink representing the Houston Curling Club brought home a silver medal at the 2024 US Arena Nationals championship in late October. However, the men’s rink he is a member of didn’t fare as well at the men’s component of the competition.
Mr. Major, who is originally from Gore Bay, told The Expositor last week, “Our ladies rink did wonderful as usual,” noting they were the favourites going into the competition held in Wausau, Wisconsin. The rink includes skip Julie Segovia, vice Alisa Parks, second Heather Cook, lead Jessica Boswick and fifth Allison Miller.
“The ladies went undefeated in the round-robin portion of the tournament, winning all five of their games,” said Mr. Major. “They had a bye to play in the semi-finals and won, to go to the finals.”
In the championship game, “our girls actually played very poorly, the team was flat,” said Mr. Major. “But the game still went down to the last rock. Our skip had to draw to the button and she threw perfect weight, but our sweepers overswept, and it rubbed one of our other rocks, and slid back about three inches too far.”
The Segovia skip rink had won the gold medal the past three years in the US Arena Nationals.
“Our ladies’ team and I are going to the Mid-America Curling Association district club playdowns in Denver, Colorado beginning December 13. This event takes in clubs from Nebraska to Texas.
“Two years ago our rink was first in the MACA club playdowns, which gave us a berth in the nationals and we finished fourth,” said Mr. Major.
“I think we will finish in the top two or third at the worst at the upcoming event,” continued Mr. Major. We have beat all the teams that are taking part several times in the past.”
Only one team, the first-place team will move on to earn a spot in the US Club National Championship.
In the men’s division at the US Arena Nationals, Mr. Major was on a Houston Curling Club rink that included Carl Schaeper, Don Huggins and Nathan Nissley. “We won two and lost three,” he said. “We played two of the top teams in the first two games and dropped both. Then we won our next two games and if we had won the next game we would have moved on to the playoffs. We lost that third game to the eventual gold medal winners.”
