It’s a busy time to be Rebecca Rodgers.

The 22-year-old Leyden native is in the midst of a busy stretch competing at the highest levels of the sport of curling. Rodgers, who now lives and trains in St. Paul, Minn., recently captured a bronze medal representing Team USA at the Winter FISU World University Games in Lake Placid, N.Y. She must quickly shift her attention to the USA Women’s National Championships in Denver, Colo., which begin Sunday and run through Feb. 11.

“It’s definitely been a busy month or two,” said Rodgers, who competes as USA’s Under 25 national squad [referred to as Team Strouse] along with teammates Delaney Strouse, Anne O’Hara, Sydney Mullaney, and Susan Dudt. “This is our fourth year together as a team. Curling teams switch around all the time, especially when [Olympic cycles] are changing, so we’re very lucky to have been able to grow and be curling throughout the years. It’s a really special experience having this much time together as a team, the continuity… and our communication is pretty seamless at this point so it’s cool to see how we’ve grown.”

Rodgers, who graduated from Pioneer Valley Regional in 2018, and Team Strouse won the Junior National championship in 2020, and followed that up with a fourth-place finish in the squad’s first-ever U.S. Olympic Trials appearance in 2021.

“That was definitely a good motivator,” recalled Rodgers of the 2021 event held in Omaha, Neb. “It was really cool to be on an important stage of competition, almost kind of surreal when you’ve been working toward it so long. I think we were the youngest team there so it was mission accomplished [to finish fourth]. Now we’re really on the grind for the next four years.”

Last month’s bronze medal at the World University Games was a special trip for Rodgers & Co. In addition to representing the USA, she was able to perform in front of friends and family, some seeing her curl for the first time ever. Team Strouse lost to China in the semifinals but defeated Great Britain in the bronze medal match to book a spot on the podium. The competition was shown on ESPN.

“The Games were a really cool experience because it was almost like an Olympic Games for college-aged students,” said Rodgers, who graduated in 2022 from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. “It was my first international competition like that, and to be there competing along with all the other winter sports was cool. And having it in the U.S., I had lots of family who came and watched me.”

Next week’s Nationals is a big opportunity for Rodgers and her team. Currently ranked No. 3 in the country, Team Strouse should be in contention for a top finish, and a potential berth to the 2023 World Championships, set to be held in Sandviken, Sweden, from March 18-26. The tournament, which will be held at the Denver Coliseum, opens with the team’s first pool play match on Monday. Round robin action continues until the semifinals on Friday, and the women’s final is set for Saturday evening.

“We’re really hoping to make that final and get a top two spot,” Rodgers said. “That’s our goal, to make the finals and see what happens.”

Rodgers said she moved to Minnesota after graduating from Wisconsin-Eau Claire last May, a shift that has her near teammates with the ability to use the facilities at USA Curling’s headquarters. The headquarters are adjacent to the Minnesota Vikings headquarters and training facility, Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center.

“It’s been really nice to be out here,” she explained. “We have the use of a lot of facilities, the Training HAUS which is where the Vikings train, and we have a trainer there who we use. There’s also multiple curling clubs in the area so we’re able to practice as a team more frequently.”

Off the ice, Rodgers is slated to begin a new job as a plant health care technician for a tree company in Minnesota later this year. She graduated with a degree in biology with an emphasis in ecology and environmental biology.

Curling will still be an integral part of her life however, as she continues to perform and compete at the highest levels nationally with the hopes of qualifying for the 2026 Milano Cortina (Italy) Winter Olympics.

“Curling’s always going to be a part of my life recreationally,” she said. “But right now it’s been great to really focus on competing at the highest levels, training and working toward achieving success in the big tournaments that we get to play in. I’m just enjoying that aspect of the sport right now and hopefully see where we can go as a team over the next few years.”

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