Fenson, Farbelow earn top seeds in USA Curling championship playoffs
USA Curling March 12, 2010
(KALAMAZOO, Mich.) - The Pete Fenson and Mike Farbelow teams won tiebreaker games in the 2010 USA Curling National Championships at Wings Stadium tonight to move within one game of the gold medal contest.
The Fenson and Farbelow teams will compete as the #1 and #2 seeds in the page system playoffs, with the winner advancing to Saturday's 3 p.m. final. Whatever the result, the Fenson family of Bemidji, Minn. will be represented in the finals, as Pete's brother, Eric Fenson, plays third on the Farbelow team.
Farbelow (Minneapolis), Eric Fenson, and teammates Jeff Puleo (Forest Lake, Minn.) and Mark Willmert (Minneapolis) clinched their victory over the Matt Hames team on the last rock. With the Hames team sitting three, Farbelow made a controlled weight hit around a guard to score one for the 6-5 win.
Fenson's team was tied with the fellow Bemidji, Minn., based team skipped by Matt Stevens after six ends, 5-5. Fenson scored two in the seventh and then gained the upper hand with a steal of one in the eighth. Stevens pulled to within 8-7 with a pair in the ninth, but Fenson's team iced the game with another deuce in the 10th for a final score of 10-7.
The men's page playoff games are at noon Friday. Stevens and Hames will square off to see who will advance to the 8 o'clock semifinal Friday night against the loser of the Fenson-Farbelow game.
The national champion will earn the privilege of representing USA at the men's World Curling Championship April 3-11 in Cortina, Italy.
USA Curling is sponsored by AIT Worldwide Logistics, Nike, bitRail, Laphroaig Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky and is partnered with CurlingZone and Hilton Garden Inn Washington DC.
