The Wayne State College curling team has qualified for nationals, which will be held in Utica, N.Y., March 10-12.

WSC is ranked 8th in the country, and the top 16 teams qualify for nationals. It is a big step for a young team with humble beginnings.

“The curling club was started by Cameron Groenke three years ago,” Curling Club President, Lily Roberts said. “We only had six people and we basically learned the sport from watching videos on the internet. We didn’t have any money, so we did our own fundraising. We went to a few tournaments and did really bad.”

Since then, the curling club has made considerable improvements. Very few students on campus even know how to curl.

“It’s a mix between darts, shuffleboard and chess,” Roberts said. “It’s like chess because you need to think ahead, darts because you have to be accurate and it’s a shuffleboard-like motion.”

A team is made up of four members. Two teams face off in a match that consists of eight ends, which are like innings in baseball. All the members of each team get two throws per end.

The team members are the leader, second, vice and skip. The skip spots for his/her teammates as they throw, and the vice spots for the skip.

To score, you must have a stone inside the house (outer ring) that is closer to the button (defacto bull’s eye) than your opponent’s closest stone. Any other stone closer than the opponent’s closest stone counts as a score. If there are no stones inside the house, no one scores.

The curling club, which now has 13 members, practices in Omaha every Sunday, and they compete in the Aksarben Curling Club in Omaha. The team also travels to tournaments around the region to face off against other college clubs.

The curling club begins practice in August and competition in October, which comes to an end with nationals in March.

“I love it,” Roberts said. “It’s one of the most fun and interesting things I’ve ever done. It’s challenging and different.”