UW Teams Tune up for Home Rodeo This Week

With just the final home rodeo this weekend, the University of Wyoming Cowgirls team is in good position to draw a bid to the College National Finals Rodeo (CNFR) this summer in Casper.

Despite just finishing in fourth place at last weekend’s Ropin’ and Riggin’ Days, hosted by Casper College, the Cowgirls held on to second place in the overall Central Rocky Mountain Region (CRMR) standings with the regular season 68th annual Laramie River Rendezvous Rodeo finale this week.

Gillette College already has the women’s CRMR title wrapped up with 3,138.7 points, and the UW women are solidly in second place with 2,113.7 points. The Casper College women have made a late surge after a second-place performance in their home rodeo. But, it may not be enough for the T-Birds to close the gap, trailing the Cowgirls by 548 points.

The top two teams and the top three individuals in each event from the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association’s 11 regions qualify for the season-ending CNFR at the Casper Events Center in June.

That bodes well for George Howard’s four-member UW women’s team heading into the season-ending home rodeo at the Cliff and Martha Hansen Livestock Teaching Arena.

The rodeo will have a different format this week when action begins with a Thursday, April 27, night performance beginning at 7. Slack is scheduled at 10 a.m. Friday, followed by a 7 p.m. performance. Slack picks up again Saturday at 10 a.m., and the championship round ends the rodeo Saturday, April 29, at 7 p.m.

The cost for each of the evening performances is $10 per person, but UW students with student IDs will be admitted for $5 only during Thursday evening’s performance. Normally, all rodeos this season have been Friday-Sunday events.

Both UW teams struggled at Casper College last weekend.

The Cowgirls scored all 150 team points in their overall strongest event, goat tying, placing two team members in the average’s top five, with a third just missing jumping into the overall average’s top six in scoring.

Senior Amelia Anderson, from Forsythe, Mont., had UW’s highest finish, placing fourth in the average, while teammate Casey Reimler, a Rozet freshman, was one spot back in fifth place. Overall regional leader Cori Terry, a freshman from McKinnon, added the final 25 team points but did not place in the overall average.

Gillette College took the team title with 475 points, while the host Lady T-Birds were the runners-up with 355 points. Sheridan College was third with 225 points, and the Cowgirls wrapped up the weekend in fourth place.

The UW men remained fifth overall in the regional standings after scoring 230 points in Casper to split sixth place with the host T-Birds.

Sheridan College made a strong push to claim a rare CRMR men’s championship by dominating last weekend’s rodeo. The Generals piled up 490 points to nearly win by triple digits against second-place Gillette College, which scored 395 points. The two teams head the overall CRMR standings, with Sheridan College totaling 4,260 points through nine fall and spring rodeos, while the Pronghorns have tallied 3,620.

The UW men’s team is fifth, where it has been all spring, with 2,390 points.

The men were led by defending regional bull riding champion Jacob Smith, who scored 110 of the team’s points. The LaSalle, Colo., junior scored a solid 80 points in his opening ride, making him and Chadron State College’s Dakota Rice the only two competitors to mark in the round. Neither, however, had a successful ride in the short go; the pair split first place.

Casper senior Brock Wahlert again was steady when he placed fourth in the bareback riding average to score an additional 90 team points. Dusty Taylor, a freshman from Craig, Colo., and his brother, Denton Taylor, a sophomore, were seeded sixth after the opening round, but didn’t stop the clock on their second steer in team roping. The pair scored 20 team points, while the final 10 came from Wyatt Hageman in saddle bronc riding. The Jay Em junior scored 10 points in the short go round.

For complete results from the Ropin’ and Riggin’ Days Rodeo, click here. For CRMR individual and team standings, click here.