American curlers on rocks after 0-2 day on ice
U.S. still winless after 11-5 concession to Canada, 6-5 loss to upstart Japan
 Morry Gash / AP Canada’s Shannon Kleibrink, front, yells to her teammates as the United States’ Jessica Schultz, right, and Maureen Brunt can do nothing but look on. The U.S. ended up conceding the match early, suffering a stinging 11-5 defeat. |
PINEROLO, Italy - Cassie Johnson answered the same questions with the same relentlessly upbeat attitude after a third consecutive loss for the U.S. women’s curling team.
“Tomorrow’s another day,” she said after the squad remained winless with a 6-5, extra-end loss to Japan on Tuesday night. “I can always go home and say, ’I’m an Olympian.”’
That could come sooner than expected, unless the Americans win at least five of their remaining six games in the Olympic round-robin to reach the medal round. The defending world silver medalists are last in the 10-team field.
“We’re disappointed in where we stand. I don’t think we’re too disappointed in how we played,” Johnson said. “We definitely want to kick it up a notch now.”
The Americans faced a big disadvantage in the 11th end — or inning — because Japan had the right to throw last. But the problem was exacerbated when Johnson tried to tuck her last rock behind a blocker and missed the target completely.
Japan needed only to put one in anywhere in the target to win the game, and Ayumi Onodera did. The Japanese team jumped up and down and hugged to celebrate their first win of the tournament.
Unlike the first two U.S. opponents, Norway and Canada, Japan was not expected to contend for a medal against the North American and Scandinavian curling powers.
“They’re still a very good team,” U.S. lead thrower Maureen Brunt said. “They’ve beaten us before, so I wouldn’t count them out.”
At least this one was close: Norway won 11-6 on Monday and Canada won 11-5 on Tuesday morning, neither needing the regulation 10 ends to finish it off.
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After their second loss, some of the Americans stayed in the venue locker room during the afternoon men’s matches and others went to a nearby hotel to relax. Johnson and her sister Jamie, the vice-skip, went to lunch with their parents before returning for a pre-match routine that involved each player picking a song to play on the stereo.
One of them chose the Big & Rich song “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy).”
“It’s a huge psych-up song,” Cassie Johnson said of the tune they started playing before they won the Olympic trials last year and finished second at the world championships. “It’s one of those pick-you-up kinds of songs.”
But as Johnson left the ice, a different, less encouraging song was playing over the loudspeaker: “It ain’t easy.”
In the other night matches, host Italy delighted the crowd by playing Denmark tough for six ends, before the Danes posted a three in the seventh and went on to win 10-7. Canada needed its very last rock to beat Russia 6-5, a surprisingly close match.
Equally unexpected were Norway’s struggles against Switzerland, which needed just seven ends to coast to a 9-2 victory. A regulation curling match is 10 ends but a team can concede when a comeback becomes improbable.
The Americans bypassed a chance to tie the game in the ninth to retain the big advantage that comes with having the last rock, called the hammer, in the 10th. Johnson used her last throw of the ninth to clear out the target area — but now she needed two points in the last end of regulation to win.
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Japan managed to crowd the target zone with stones, though, and Johnson had to make it through traffic to get the one point in the 10th — essentially holding serve — that sent it into extra ends. But since the team that scores gives up the hammer, Japan would throw last in the 11th.
Johnson made it easy for them by missing with the last American rock.
With that, even the doggedly optimistic team was forced to admit some doubts.
After maintaining through two losses that they would not get disheartened, this time Brunt could only muster, “We’re trying not to.”
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