Local men’s curling team wins Wisconsin title

A quartet of curlers from Superior recently brought home top honors with a first-place finish at the 2011-12 Wisconsin Men’s Club Championship.

Jeff Erickson, Irvin Mossberger Jr., Brian Bergquist and Chris Bode won the state championship title on Dec. 18 to conclude a four-day tournament in Centerville, Wis.

The four men, members of the Superior Curling Club, now advance to represent Wisconsin at the National Club Championship, held March 3-10 in Mankato, Minn.

This is Superior’s 20th state men’s curling title in 55 years and the first since 1997.

Claiming the title this time around didn’t come easily. Just finalizing this year’s team proved to be an unexpected challenge for the Superior men.

“The team had been in the works for about a year but came together at the last minute,” Mossberger said. “I knew Chris from high school, and we played in a few bonspiels last year and played well together. He suggested we add Brian, whom Chris was curling with on another league team.”

The fourth member of the original rink was slated to be the skip for the team, but he was forced to drop out. That left Mossberger and his teammates scrambling to find a replacement.

“A few people said maybe but couldn’t commit,” Mossberger said. “Two days before the registration deadline at the end of November, I finally called Jeff.

“There was a bit of fate involved. I also curl in Duluth, and a team I played against was looking for a sub to play with them in the Duluth Curling Club’s Turkey Spiel. I played pretty well, and we wound up beating Jeff’s team. I think that was, in Jeff’s mind, when he agreed to skip our team.”

Superior’s final team sorted out with Erickson as skip, Mossberger as vice-skip, Bergquist as second and Bode as lead.

At the Wisconsin Men’s Club Championship, the Erickson rink got off to a fast start with wins in its first five games.

The Superior curlers were tied with two other teams at 5-2 after round-robin play, which sent the teams into a tiebreaker round.

The Erickson rink had defeated the other two teams in head-to-head play, so Superior received a bye into the championship playoff game. In the championship match, the Superior men defeated Madison’s Ken Neidhart rink in the final game with a steal of one in the tenth end.

Tags: sports, superior, wisconsin, curling