This is the team’s second year as an official school-sanctioned club and after a rough start in 2015, they only hope to grow in size and expand their love for the uncommon winter sport.
Started by Blake Hagberg in October of 2015, the SUNY Poly Curling Club has traveled to Schenectady and Rochester, New York and to Bridgeport, Connecticut to compete in curling tournaments, or bonspiels as they are more commonly called. By missing the first college bonspiel of the season, it didn’t seem likely that the first-years were going to qualify for Nationals. However, their consistent wins earned them enough points to compete in the 2016 College Curling Championships in Chaska, Minnesota. The national team consisted of Ashley Paw ‘19 (lead), Scott Murray ‘19 (second), Jeremy Zhang ‘19 (vice-skip), and Blake Hagberg ‘19 (skip). The team played four games, winning the first three in their round-robin to advance to the gold medal semi-finals. There, they put up a good fight but lost to The University of Pennsylvania who went on to become the National Champions.
Elizabeth Simonelli ‘19 is very optimistic about this season. “We saw some promising talent at our Learn-To-Curl event last February,” she said. “Our team looks very strong again this year and I believe we will safely qualify for Nationals.” The 2016-2017 season begins on October 16th . The 2017 College Curling Championships is in Utica, New York and will take place in March over spring break.