Chris Pleasants, Zach Radmer, Bret Nordlund, and Jon Chartrand from Seattle's Granite Curling Club (www.curlingseattle.org) defeated Brian Caldwell's Minnesota team 9-4 in a tiebreaker on Sunday afternoon to win the World University Games U.S. Team Trials in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. With the victory, the foursome earned the right to become Team USA, and will represent the United States in curling at the 2009 Winter World University Games in Harbin, China, February 20th- 27th, 2009.

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Chris Pleasants, the team's skip, or captain, is an Amazon.com employee and recent grad of the University of Washington with two degrees, one in computer science and one in physics. Zach Radmer played the third position and is a super-senior in biology and environmental studies at the University of Washington. He works for the Northwest Fisheries Science Center. The team's second, Jon Chartrand is super- senior in biology at the University of Washington. Rounding out the team playing the lead postion is Bret Nordlund, who is studying earth and space sciences at the University of Washington.

The Pleasants rink now joins the Katherine Stewart rink as representatives for the USA (pending final approval by the U.S. Olympic Committee) at the 2009 Winter World University Games, Feb. 20-27 in Harbin, China.

After losing to Jerod Roland's team, 7-6, in the morning draw, the Seattle-based team headed to a tiebreaker game when Caldwell's team defeated Jerad Daul, 8-0, to create a matching 4-2 record.

In this afternoon's tiebreaker match-up, Pleasants (Seattle) and teammates Zachary Radmer (Seattle), Jon Chartrand (Seattle) and Bret Nordlund (Issaquah, Wash.) defeated Team Caldwell for the third time in this tournament by capitalizing on steal opportunities. The Pleasants rink took singles in the first two ends but Caldwell (Mapleton, Minn.) and teammates Matthew Collom (Galesville, Wis.), Tyler Vietanen (Trempealeau, Wis.) and John Landsteiner (Mapleton, Minn.) evened the score with a deuce in the third end. The Washington squad answered with three points and then a steal of two to build a 7-2 after five ends. Caldwell would add two more points but Pleasants finished off the game with singles in the next two ends.

This will be the first major international appearance for all four members of the Pleasants team. Joining Stewart on the women's team are Amanda McLean (Duluth, Minn.), Casey Cucchiarelli (Wausau, Wis.) and Sarah McLeod (Esko, Minn.).

This will be the third time curling is featured as a medal sport at the bi-annual WWUG. The U.S. won its lone medal back in 2007 when Olympian John Shuster led his team to the gold medal.

Final standings:
Chris Pleasants (Washington) 5-2
Brad Caldwell (Minnesota) 4-3
Jerod Roland (North Dakota) 3-3
Jerad Daul (North Dakota) 1-5

USA Curling is sponsored by AIT Worldwide Logistics, AmerAust Technologies and Nike.

For more information: Terry Kolesar, USA Curling, terry.kolesar@usacurl.org

The Granite Curling Club is the only dedicated curling club on the west coast of the lower 48 states and his home to more national championship teams than any other curling club in the U.S. The most recent champions are the Brady Clark rink, the 2007 Mixed Nationals champions.