Six of the South Plains College Rodeo team members headed to Casper, Wyoming to compete in the historic College National Finals Rodeo (CNFR) at the Ford Wyoming Center from June 14 through June 20 where two of the six competitors qualified for the final round of competition.
These members include goat-tier competitor and breakaway roper Zaran Kirkpatrick, breakaway roper Kassidy Robertson, team ropers Jantsen and Jayden Morris, team roper Trey Adams and his partner from Texas Tech University, Braxton Barker, and barrel racer Sierra Telford.
The College Finals Rodeo has three preliminary rounds which are added up. The 12 cowboys and cowgirls with the lowest times move on to the short go round.
Robertson in the breakaway roping event started off very strong with a time of 2.6 seconds, which allowed her to sit at 12th out of 69 total participants and 39 timed scores going into day two when she recorded a time of 3.5 seconds. On day three she recorded a 3.1second time.
Robertson went on to make the short go finals round where she went in sitting in third place.
In the short go round, Robertson recorded the fastest time of the night, 1.8 seconds. Robertson, with her total time of 11 seconds across the four rounds she ended the season as the third best college breakaway roper in the nation.
Kirkpatrick also competed in the breakaway roping event and had a rough start on day one, breaking the barrier and recording a 12.7 second run, with the 10second penalty of breaking the barrier. Day two she came back and ran a 12.1 second run and day three ended with a 3.2 second time.
Even with breaking the barrier on day one, Kirkpatrick qualified for the CNFR final short go final round in the breakaway roping event sitting at 12th place overall. Unfortunately, Kirkpatrick recorded a notime in the final round.
SPC Jantsen and Jayden Morris competed in the team roping event. Day one was a bit rough, as the Morris brothers recorded a no-time. Day two they recorded a 12.2 second time, ending in 12th place out of 28 scored runs. Day three ended with the best time of the week, 6.3 seconds, where they sat in ninth place out of 28 scored runs for the day.
Unfortunately, due to the first round's no-score, the Morris brothers did not qualify for the final short go round of the rodeo.
SPC Adams and his partner recorded no-times for all three go-rounds and their season ended there.
Telford in the barrel racing event of the rodeo came out hot on day one with a 14.26 second run, which led her to stand at 19th place among 50 contestants. Day two slowed down a little bit with a recorded 20.31 second run and day three Telford recorded her best time of the week, 14.18 seconds, though she did not qualify for the finals.