The U.S. Olympic women's curling team needed all the sweeping help it could get on Nina Roth's last shot of an extra end on Saturday.
The McFarland native's shot for a win was looking light when Tabitha Peterson joined Aileen Geving and McFarland's Becca Hamilton to sweep the stone into place for a 7-6 victory over the Russian team in Gangneung, South Korea.
"It felt really good out of my hand and then I saw the girls pound it," Roth said. "They're great at judging and reading rocks, so they kind of knew they had to pound it. And then it started curling, so all I could do was yell at them, which I did."
The Americans evened their record at 2-2 in the nine-game, round-robin tournament and are tied for fifth place.
The teams traded single points over the last five regular ends, with Roth executing a takeout to score one in the ninth end for a 6-5 lead.
A guard set up by Roth on her last shot of the 10th end forced the Russians to draw for one point and a tie.
Russia scored two in the second end for a 2-1 lead but the Americans played a takeout for two points in the third to regain the lead.
Hamilton, the U.S. first, shot 82 percent in the game and Roth was at 81 percent.
"We all played great, but we just need to sharpen up a little bit," Hamilton said. "We were just on the wrong side of the inch on a couple of them there where we gave up (points) and could've had two or forced them to one."
The U.S. team was due to play 0-3 Canada later Saturday (5:05 a.m. Madison time) in a critical match for both teams' chances of making the semifinals. Only the top four of 10 teams advance out of the round robin.
Men's hockey
Former University of Wisconsin player Rene Bourque scored a power-play goal in Canada's 3-2 shootout loss to the Czech Republic.
Bourque had five shots on goal but was minus-2 after being on the ice for both of the Czech Republic's goals.
Former Badgers defenseman Cody Goloubef didn't have a shot in 16:13 of ice time.
Canada finishes pool play against South Korea on Sunday.