HARBIN, China—Marc Pfister and Kathleen Dubberstein might have narrowly missed climbing up the medal stands for Team Philippines in the 9th Asian Winter Games, but all is not lost for the national curling squad with the men’s and women’s team competitions coming up.

The Filipino tandem fought hard in the battle for bronze before yielding a 6-5 decision to host China’s Han Yu and Wang Zhiyu on Saturday at the Harbin Pingfang District Curling Arena.

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“We gave it a try, looking at how far we can go. When we got to the semifinal and the bronze-medal game, we knew we had to win a medal and that was hard,” said Pfister.

Practicing together for just “six or seven times” prior to the mixed doubles preliminary round-robin encounter, Pfister and Dubberstein pulled off the unexpected, shocking Asia No. 1 Korea and winning four of their five matches in the preliminaries.

In the crossover quarterfinals, the Filipinos took care of business against Taiwan, but dropped their semifinal duel against world power Japan.

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Now, Pfister and Dubberstein will focus their medal hunt on men’s and women’s tournaments slated for Sunday.

“I’m skip (team captain) in the men’s team and we’re going for a medal. That’s the goal, to win a medal for the Philippines because we’ve never won a medal before,” said Pfister, who played for Switzerland’s national team in the world and European championships.

Groseclose, not quite

Meanwhile, Peter Joseph Groseclose failed to advance to the medal races in men’s short track speed skating, finishing sixth in his 1500-meter semifinal heat and third in his quarterfinal grouping in the 500 m.

Alpine skier Tallulah Proulx also missed out on a medal, finishing 14th out of 35 finalists in the women’s slalom run at the Yabuli Ski Resort.

Cheered on by a small group of Filipinos at the stands, Pfister and Dubberstein seemed headed for another huge upset after taking a 4-0 leads heading into the third end.

But Han and Wang patiently calculated their moves and slowly chopped the Philippine advantage one end at a time.

“This game personally I think I could have done better in my last rocks. The way I missed the shots were very marginal, so if we can work on honing those skills, I think we can do great next time,” said Dubberstein, who played in the US nationals from 2011 to 2019.

The Chinese duo finally grabbed the upper hand in the seventh end, 6-4, with Pfister and the United States-based Dubberstein getting one last chance for a comeback in the final end.

With the clock running out, Pfister and Dubberstein managed to strategically put their rocks in an advantageous position. Dubberstein’s last shot, however, saw the granite slide past the house on the left, missing its target.