CSC entries have high expectations at national finals rodeo

The Chadron State men finished the year with 4,460 points to win the Central Rocky Mountain Region’s team championship by 969 points over runner-up Casper College. It’s the first time a CSC men’s team has won the regional title and this will be the second time CSC cowboys have qualified as a team for the national finals.

The men’s team has six members. They will be accompanied by goat tier extraordinaire, Shelby Winchell of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, who won the regional championship with 1,080 points, 465 more than the runner-up.

Winchell has been among the 12 goat tying finalists at the CNFR three times and placed third in 2012 and second in 2014 in the final standings. Her points helped the CSC women’s team earn the reserve champion honors at the 2014 CNFR.

This year’s rodeo will begin Sunday with bulls, broncs and breakaway sessions starting at noon and 4 p.m. in the Casper Events Center.

In order to accommodate all the contestants, slack will take place both Monday and Tuesday, starting at 7 a.m. Beginning Tuesday, performances with all the trimmings will take place each evening starting at 7 o’clock, culminating with the championship go-round Saturday night. That’s when the top 12 contestants in each event after the rodeo’s three go-rounds have ended will compete.

The CSC men’s team will be led by Clayton Van Aken of Descanso, California, who was the region’s tie-down roping champion and took third in the team roping header standings. Both Winchell and Van Aken won saddles as the regional champions.

Also qualifying individually for the CNFR are Nate McFadden of Elsmere, Nebraska, and John Kissack of Gillette, Wyoming, who placed second and third, respectively, in the region’s bareback standings, and Dakota Rice of Kellogg, Idaho, the third place bull rider.

Rounding out Chadron State’s team in Casper will be Prestyn Novak of Newell, South Dakota, in tie down roping and Colby Anders of Bayard, Nebraska, in steer wrestling. They finished fifth and sixth, respectively, in the region in those events.

The CSC cowboys won the team title at four of the 10 rodeos in the region in this year and were the runners-up at three others.

Chadron State coach Dustin Luper also got in on the honors. He was selected the region’s Coach of the Year. He believes that with a little luck the men’s team will make a strong bid for the championship at the finals rodeo.

“They’re all really good cowboys,” he noted.

Luper added that Winchell’s consistency will make her hard to beat in the goat tying.

“She definitely knows how to approach goats and tie them,” Luper said.

The schedule announced this week has Kissack and McFadden riding barebacks in the second session Sunday, again Monday morning and Thursday night. There will be 36 bareback riders.

Rice will be among the last bull riders Sunday and among the first Monday. His third trip out of the chutes is Thursday night. He’s the only freshman on this year’s CSC team. There are 39 bull riders.

Both Van Aken and Novak will compete in Monday and Tuesday’s tie down slack and make their third runs Wednesday night. There are 46 calf ropers.

Van Aken and his team roping partner, Trey Yates of Laramie County Community College, will be in the middle of both the Monday and Tuesday slack performances. Their third run will be Thursday night. Fifty team roping duos are entered.

Anders will be the next to last steer wrestler on Monday, return for the first section Tuesday and make his third go-round bid Thursday evening. The doggin has 45 contestants.

One of 56 goat tiers, Winchell will be among the last to compete in Monday’s slack and the third contestant Tuesday. She’ll make her third appearance Wednesday night.