Americans Becca and Matt Hamilton are back on ice Friday in Pyeongchang and in their first mixed doubles match of the day fell to reigning world champions Switzerland, 9-4.
The brother-and-sister duo, now 1-2 overall, will next face the team from South Korea. It will be the teams' first time competing against one another.
The final score was in no way indicative of the entire game, but after heading into the final end down a point, Switzerland scored six in the eighth to stay undefeated with their win over Team USA.
The U.S. team never trailed until the final end of the game, scoring one point in each of the first, second and fourth ends to take a 3-1 lead at the midway point.
After Switzerland tied the score for the first time in the seventh end, they took advantage of U.S. mistakes, placing all of their rocks on the house for the five point win.
“It’s a let down to lose a game like when we felt like we had them, but oh well. On to the next,” Matt Hamilton said following the game.
Siblings Matt and Becca Hamilton were able to steal a point for the U.S. in the second end after the Swiss team hit their own rock out of the button in an attempt to knock out the U.S.’s red stone.
Sports
In partnership with NBC Sports Philadelphia
The Swiss relied on their defense in the third end to pick up a point, but the U.S. answered with a point of their own in the fourth after placing their hammer throw on the button with no other stones around.
Mixed doubles curling made its Olympic debut Thursday in Pyeongchang, with the Hamilton siblings winning the first-ever Olympic match in the new format.
They went 1-1 on the day, defeating the Olympic Athletes from the 2016 world champion Russia team before narrowly falling to a Canadian team made up of Olympic gold medalists John Morris and Kaitlyn Lawes.
Team Switzerland was the only team to go 2-0 in the first day of competition.
The Hamiltons had faced off against Russia in mixed doubles curling before, at the 2017 World Championships — a match in which the brother-and-sister team was defeated 7-5 and eliminated from contention.
During Wednesday night’s opener of the 2018 Winter Olympics, the Hamiltons got their comeback, defeating Team OAR 9-3 in seven ends.
But they lost their second match of the day to Canada, leaving the #HamFam, as the Americans have become known on Twitter, with a .500 record after the first of four days of mixed curling qualifiers.
