By Con Marshall
Several members of the Chadron State College rodeo team got the spring season off to a promising start at Gillette College last weekend.Â
CSC had 9 contestants in the finals on Sunday with 5Â playing in the top 6.
The CSC men finished 3rd in the team standings with 330 points, their highest total in the first 6 rodeos in 2023-24 aside from the 520 points they earned last fall while winning the team title at Sheridan College,
“We had a pretty good weekend,” Coach Lane Day said. “We were hoping to do a little better in the finals, but overall things went pretty well. We’ll should be competitive this spring.”Â
Chadron State’s highest placing individual was sophomore Bridget Romey of Hot Springs. She placed 3rd among the 85 barrel racers. She was 6th in the first go-round in 14.43 seconds, moved up to 3rd in the finals with a 14.34 run and was 3rd overall.
Grant Turek of St. Paul, Neb., led the CSC cowboys. By placing in both tie down and team roping, he was 3rd in the rodeo’s all-around cowboy standings.
Turek placed 4th in tie down roping. He caught and tied his first calf in 9.9 seconds, good for 2nd in the long go-round, then was 5th in the finals in 12.8 seconds to finish 4th overall.
Turek joined with Jake Chasek of Mitchell to tie for 2nd and 3rd in the first go-round of team roping in 7.2 seconds. They were 5th in 8.3 seconds on their second run Sunday and were 5th in the final standings.
There were 132 team ropers at the rodeo.
Pepper Rhyne of Craig, Colo., also caught both calves in tie down roping. His times of 12.0 and 14.8 seconds put him in 7th place overall, one notch shy of earning team points.Â
 In addition, Cinch Kiger of Overton, Neb., got off to a good start in bareback riding, earning 72 points to share 2nd and 3rd place in the opening go-round. but his second bronc didn’t buck as hard and Kiger earned just 64 points, putting him in 6th place overall. Â
Also, Parker Johnston of Maywood was among the 10 finalists in steer wrestling, where he finished 7th in 9.5 and 10.5 seconds. Â
Two CSC cowgirls, Rylee Naprstek of Gothenburg and Ashlyn Henderson of Hyannis, made the finals of breakaway roping after catching their first calves in 3.0 and 3.1 seconds, respectively, but neither of them connected on her second runs on Sunday.
Eastern Wyoming College at Torrington will host this weekend’s rodeo in the Central Rocky Mountain Region.