No tiebreakers.

And with that, event organizers, arena workers and television crew members all heave a sign of relief. The next games at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Curling aren’t until Friday evening.

That means we’re straight into the playoffs, and the final four remaining in the women’s and men’s competition are no surprise.

John Shuster’s defending men’s champions from Chaska, MN finished 9-1 with their only blemish coming in their second head-to-head battle with Korey Dropkin (Duluth, MN), who claimed second with a 7-3 won/loss record.

That’s your men’s finalists, who will now play a best-of-three playoff series for the Olympic trip to Beijing in February.

“Early in the week was a little bit rough,” said Team Dropkin’s Joe Polo. “We struggled a little bit early on, and had that one day where we lost two games—that was a little bit tough on us. But we regrouped, had a little team meeting that night, and decided we’re gonna go out and win some games … and we started playing a lot better.”

The men’s playoffs begin at 5:00 p.m. CT.

Rich Ruohonen of Minneapolis finished 6-4, and missed out on a tiebreaker when Dropkin defeated Philadelphia’s Scott Dunnam by a 6-3 scoreline.

Dunnam and Greg Persinger of Fairbanks, AK finished 4-6 while Jed Brundidge of East St. Paul, MN wound up at 0-10.

On the women’s side, Tabitha Peterson’s defending champions from St. Paul also ran out to a 9-1 round-robin record, and will face off against the current national champions from Chaska skipped by Cory Christensen.

“Mission accomplished,” said Team Peterson third Nina Roth, who skipped the team at PyeongChang 2018 but now throws third stones for Peterson.

“We’re a really resilient team, so we’re just focusing on our processes and everything we’ve done over the last four years to get to this point.”

Team Christensen finished 7-3 and starts their best-of-three playoff series against Peterson Friday at 8:00 p.m. CT.

There was a huge gap in the standings between the top two squads and other four women’s Trials competitors. Kim Rhyme of Minneapolis and Jamie Sinclair of Charlotte, NC finished 4-6, while teams skipped by Madison Bear (Chaska) and Delaney Strouse (Minneapolis) went 3-7.