Starting with 3 each, both teams fall in openers

MEDFORD CURLING

The Medford Area Senior High School curling season got off to a rocky start on Tuesday as both the boys and the girls teams lost their season openers to the visiting Marshfield Tigers at the Medford Curling Club.

Both Medford squads played three-handed as the program continues to be hampered by low numbers.

The girls team lost their opener on a score of 11-1.

“This will be a learning year,” said coach Stu Amundson. He explained the team is fairly new with Erica Brandner the sole returning player from last year’s team.

Amundson said that through the early season practice he has been pleased with what he has seen as far as performance and anticipates they will end up winning more games than losing this year depending on what other schools in their conference have for talent.

“They should have a pretty decent year, I would think,” he said.

For his lineup Amundson has Adalyn Dittrich playing in the lead position, Erica Brandner in second and Caidyn Zenner in skip. The team’s fourth player Alexandra Paff was not playing in Tuesday’s match.

The boys team looked ready to build on their late season run last year, but ended up losing a two-rock lead going into the eighth and fell 12-10. Both Marshfield and Medford gave up big scoring ends during the contest but managed to make it a tight run at the end.

All three of the members of the boys team are returning with senior Brett Lundy in the skip position.

“He has been doing pretty good this year,” Amundson said, noting that the team had a rough year last year, but came together and started to click toward the end of the season to get some wins. He looked to build off that momentum going into this season.

Juniors Alex Wilson and Nathan Willman round out the boys team.

“Since our first practice night, they have improved a lot on delivery and just overall in the game,” Amundson said.

Amundson has been helped with assistant coach Jackie Lemke, who has competed at the international level, assisting the team in drills and practices.

“Jackie has been a real help with a lot of things,” Amundson said.