RICE LAKE, Wis. (WJMC) — A couple of kids from Rice Lake helped claim a national championship.
Austin Kadlec and Kyler Warring of Rice Lake made up half of the USA Curling U18 national champions. They were joined by Zac Hess of Eau Claire and Davin Britton of Superior. Team Kadlec was one of 12 teams to qualify for the national championship held in Lafayette, Colorado.
Team Kadlec was dominant only suffering one defeat in the group stage. That at the hands of Team Grabow. But Team Kadlec would get revenge in the championship match to claim the national title. Austin Kadlec says they didn’t play their best in the first matchup.
“Our first game against them we kind of let up. We gave them a lot of points we didn’t need to and so going into that last game we knew we could play better against them. And it ended up being a really close game. So it felt really good to come out on top of that one,” Kadlec said.
Austin says he has been curling most of his life but didn’t start competitively until recently.
“I started my first Learn to Curls when I was eight but we started competitive curling, I think, three years ago now,” he said.
Last year, Team Kadlec took third place in the national championships.