Members of the Chadron State College rodeo team were among the top 10 qualifiers for the finals in seven of the nine events at the Lamar College rodeo last weekend, but only two of them wound up placing among the top six and earning team points. Bull riding and team roping were the only events in which CSC did not have at least one finalist.
Freshman Cinch Kiger of Overton, Neb., led the CSC contestants by placing third in bareback riding with two 71-point scores. He was fourth in the first go-round and third in the finals on Sunday.
Junior Trayton Travnicek of Minatare was sixth in steer wrestling in 6.0 and 5.5 seconds.
Three more CSC entries finished seventh in their events. They are junior Tanner Whetham of Morrill, who roped and tied his calves in 10.3 and 10.7 seconds; freshman McKenna Fisher of Sutherland, who finished the two runs in the barrel race in 17.96 and 18.16 seconds; and freshman Sara Montgomery of Esparto, Calif., who tied her goats in 8.1 and 12.5 seconds.
Others reaching the finals were Blaine Flack of Crawford, who scored 63 points on his first saddle bronc, but did not get a score in the finals, and two breakaway ropers.
Senior Phannette Gray, a graduate of Cheyenne-Eagle Butte High School in northern South Dakota, tied for third and fourth in the first go-round in 2.7 seconds, and Whitley Reder of Belle Fourche, S.D., tied for fifth and sixth in 2.8 seconds. However, both failed to catch their second calves.
By placing among the top four in the first go-round, Gray won $210. There were 100 breakaway ropers at the Lamar rodeo.
The final rodeo of the 2022 fall season in the Central Rocky Mountain Region will be this coming weekend at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne.