By LUCIA
BARRANTES VEGA
Sports Editor
Last weekend, both women and men’s rodeo team traveled to Garden City, Kansas for their third spring event.
The event hosted by Garden City Community College started on Friday and ended on Sunday.
These are some of the results given by Ted Harbin on his web site Twisted Rodeo.
The clock was stopped in both rounds by Bennett McComas roping the horns and Trisyn Kalawaia the heels.
Their 6.4-second run was good enough for second place in the championship round, and the duo finished third overall.
That, combined with his consistency in steer wrestling, helped Kalawaia to the first all-around championship of his college career.
“I’ve won multiple all-around titles in high school but never in college,” he said to Harbin.
In addition, Kalawaia won the short round in steer wrestling. This boosted him to second place over-all, behind teammate Cam eron Fox, who picked up his second straight event victory.
The Rangers men placed second overall and had their best finish of the season, scoring 643.33 points.
In addition to the 90 points he received in team roping, Kalawaia added 110 in steer wrestling.
Fox placed in both rounds to win the bulldogging title. Emmett Edler, also placed in both rounds and finished fourth overall.
Quade Potter bulldogged the first-round victory but was saddled with a no-time in the short round. Grady Aasby, and Jacob Haren, also made the championship round in steer wrestling.
Haren secured 160 total points, with all but 10 coming in tie-down roping.
He won the opening round with an 8.8-second run, and then finished third in the final round to win the overall title.
Haren and teammate Kade Chace, also finished sixth in the opening round of team roping.
For the women, breakaway roper Jaci Traul, led the way. Her 2.2-second run helped her win the open-ing round, and she placed in the final round.
Her two-run cumulative time of 4.9 seconds propelled the Kansan to second overall. Lauren Hopkins, finished third in the short round and fifth overall.
The goat-tier Morgan Poust, placed fourth in the short round and fifth overall, while barrel racer Sierra Schott placed in the long round and average.
The fellow barrel racer Julianna Sprague also advanced to the championship round for the Lady Rangers.
All the points continued to add up for Northwestern. NWOSU holds down the top five spots in the re-gional standings. Potter sits third, followed by Edler and Haren.
Kalawaia will make sure he is in the mix to wrestle steers at all three, but he will face some logistical challenges.
He is also competing in ProRodeo. He is 23rd in the world standing.
The Northwestern men utilized their strong performance in Garden City to jump two spots to third place in the team standings.
The Rangers are giving chase to Western Oklahoma State College and Fort Scott Community College to finish the year.
The goal is to be among the top two when the regional season ends at month’s end to secure a team spot at the College National Finals Rodeo.
“It was a really good weekend for us, but it could have been better,” said Kalawaia to Harbin.
“I think with us coming toward the end of the season, we realize how important it is to take a team to the college finals, so it’s important for us to score as many points as possible to get there.”
The next competition for the Rangers will be this coming weekend at Weatherford. This is followed by consecutive weekends at Hays, Kansas, and Guymon, Oklahoma, respectively.
