While it was not a great weekend for Chadron State College contestants at the final rodeo of the season in the Central Rocky Mountain Region hosted by the University of Wyoming, two CSC seniors who had previously built up enough points have qualified for the College Finals Rodeo in Casper, Wyo., in June.
They are breakaway roper Brooke McCully of Mullen and tie down roper Jake Chasek of Mitchell. They will be CSC’s first representatives at the national rodeo since 2021, when the entire women’s team qualified and Brianna Williams of Buffalo, S.D., placed fourth in breakaway roping.
McCully finished as the runner-up in this year’s regional breakaway standings while Chasek tied for third and fourth in the tie down competition. Normally, just the top three in each event are eligible to advance to nationals. But CSC Rodeo Coach Lane Day said since Chasek and Cory Bomhoff of Laramie County Community College at Cheyenne each finished with 495 points to share third in the regional standings, both are qualifiers.
Dalton Porch of Gillette College is the tie down regional winner with 815 points and Tate Talkington of Northeastern Junior College at Sterling, Colo., is the runner-up with 710.
Chasek did not score at the UW rodeo because he broke the barrier in the long go-round. However, at the Casper College rodeo two weeks ago, he won the tie down title to earn 135 points, just enough, as it turned out, to forge the tie for third and earn the right to return to Casper June 15-21.
McCully finished the regional breakaway standings with 456 points to claim second for the season in an event that had nearly 100 contestants at all 10 rodeos. She tallied a bulk of her points last fall when she was the breakaway winner at two rodeos and placed second at a third.
McCully caught her calf in 2.2 seconds in the first go-round a Laramie this past weekend, but failed to catch the calf in the finals on Sunday. The regional winner is Landry Haugen with 489.33 points. Jordyn McNance is the third CFR qualifier with 400. Both are from the University of Wyoming.
Chadron State freshman Mejrusa Rustemovic of Kiowa, Colo., made a strong bid to qualify for the national finals in the barrel race. She and her gray gelding, Player, placed among the top six in the barrels at five of the 10 rodeos during the year. They won first twice and were second once. They tallied 520 points, but it left them in fourth place, 50 points shy of making the top three.
Last weekend, Rustemovic was 12th among the 95 entries in the long go-round at the UW rodeo in 15 seconds flat. It was only 12 hundredths of a second shy of making the top 10 and advancing to the finals.
The region’s barrel racing winner is Emme Norsworthy of the University of Wyoming with 630 points, including 180 at her home rodeo last weekend while winning both go-rounds and moving from sixth in the regional standings to the top spot. Ashlyn Goven of Gillette College is second with 620 points and another UW cowgirl, Rayne Grant, is third with 570.
One of Chadron State’s highest placers this past weekend was senior Elle Ravenscroft of Cody, Neb, who was fifth in breakaway roping with times of 2.2 and 3.3 seconds.
Two CSC bareback riders from Nebraska, Tanner Olsen of Gordon and Cinch Kiger of Overton, placed fifth and seventh, respectively, in that event. Olsen scored 73 and 75 points on his broncs while Kiger earned 72 and 74 points. Also, Rex Day of Bartlett, Neb., tied for sixth in steer wrestling after completing his runs in 4.9 and 9.5 seconds.