The club curling team placed second in Division II of the East Coast Regional College Curling Championship held at the Broomstones Curling Club in Wayland, Mass., last weekend, completing this winter's season.
Led by captain Carl Spielvogel '13, the lineup for regionals also included juniors Andrew Hancock, Jay Tulchin and Jimena Escudero.
Bowdoin started off with a 10-8 victory over Rochester Institute of Technology after Spielvogel scored the last two stones.
In the second and third games, the team was able to defeat two squads from Boston University with ease in what Hancock claimed were the best games they have played all year.
In the final game, Bowdoin was matched up against Harvard. After the two teams competed in different divisions a year ago, Harvard secured the victory with a big win.
Though Bowdoin competed in a lower division last year as a first-year program, it won the national championship and thus moved up to Division II, which is usually reserved for teams with over eight years of experience. Many of the opposing teams the Polar Bears faced last weekend came from programs with much longer histories.
"We were the least experienced team out of that group and we still ended up finishing in second," Hancock said. "We see that as a pretty big accomplishment."
Due to funding issues in national curling, there will be no national championship this year, but Spielvogel hopes that restructuring the system this year will lead to a more unified league across the country.
In the meantime, the curling team is planning a trip to Tennessee this August where they will have the chance to qualify for nationals next year.
"We look forward to next year. I already miss curling and I've already hit the gym for next season," Spielvogel laughed. "Seeing the World Juniors team," which played in D-I, "made us all realize that we had better prepare in the offseason when we hit the ice in November."
-Compiled by Maeve O'Leary.