https://www.usacurling.org/dailypebble/team-shuster-drops-game-one-of-finals-to-dropkin

By Jacob Thimjon, UNO and Regan Thomas, UNO

OMAHA, Neb.— The reigning gold medalists from the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic games dropped the first match of a best-of-three finals against Team Dropkin, a match in which Team Shuster never led.

“We’ve got to do better,” said skip John Shuster. “I got to do a better job to get in a position to not be playing from behind.”

Team Dropkin led 2-0 going after the second end and later increased their lead to 5-1 by the third end. However, Team Shuster responded with points in the fourth and fifth ends, but three points in the sixth end form Team Dropkin increased their lead to 8-4. Team Shuster added a point in the seventh end to make the score 8-4, but the gold medalists conceded after seven.

This situation is deja vu for Team Shuster, who dropped the first finals game in the 2018 Olympic trials to Team Dropkin. Shuster said it’s helpful to have that experience from four years ago.

“We’ve had our backs against the wall and have had to win before,” Shuster said. “Throughout our careers, we’ve all been in that position. We battle our hardest when  our backs are against the wall.”

However, it’s also deju vu for Team Dropkin.

Skip Korey Dropkin competed for Team McCormick during the last Trials, vying against Team Shuster for a 2018 Winter Olympics berth. Game One had also gone in Dropkin’s favor four years ago in Omaha.

Fast forward to 2021, Korey and company are not counting out Team Shuster with a 1-0 series lead.

“Shuster is going to come back strong and he’s gonna make a lot of shots and we have to be sharp,” Dropkin said. “I think we played really well today and we got a lot more left in us.”

Team Dropkin and Team Shuster face off in Game Two at 5 p.m. Saturday evening, with elimination on the line for the 2018 gold medalists.