SENATOBIA – The Ranger Rodeo team, along with Northwest arena and farm staff, worked hard this past week to prepare for the annual Ranger Rodeo held at the Northwest Multipurpose Arena April 20-22.
"A special thanks to Sycamore Bank and its employees that volunteered their time to assist at the event and provide breakfast to the contestants on Friday morning," head coach
Shelli Benton said. "Sponsors are the initial key to success for events like the Ranger Rodeo."
Northwest had six members participate in Thursday's performance, including
Will Tindall in calf roping. The run started well, but Will's calf darted to the left as he threw his rope and missed.
In barrel racing,
Lauren Aker and
Kelsey Phillips both had excellent, clean runs but were just shy of making it back in the short-go.
Kennith Scott,
J.R. Dukes and
Shawn Davis competed in bull-riding but were all bucked off before the 8-second timer.
Friday slack started off slow, with
Bethney Bowie having a clean run in barrels. Scott and Davis took their hand at team roping, but didn't catch.
Klarissa Neff team roped with Kolt Shaw from Southern Arkansas and they had a good catch with only one leg on the back end caught. That caused a five-second penalty and put them out for the short-go championship round.
Friday night's performance was full of Rangers, with eight competing.
Alex Lockhart and
John Mark Johnson bucked off their bareback horse, Morgan tried calf roping but didn't catch and
Garner Holcomb roped his calf at 10.3 seconds to put him in seventh place going into the championship round.
Phillips and Neff didn't catch their calf in breakaway and left with no time. Holcomb and
Morgan Mills started off excellent in team roping but they received a no time when Morgan missed dallying off his rope.
Kelby Wall and
Shawn Davis bucked off their bull and also received a no time.
Despite nasty weather Saturday night, there was still a great crowd to close the weekend.
Lockhart covered his bareback horse with a 55-point ride that earned him points in the region to finish fourth in bareback. Holcomb came back in calf roping and roped with a 17.6 to finish eighth.
"I want to congratulate Alex for finishing fourth in the Ozark region in bareback, just one spot shy of the CNFR," Benton said. "Alex will be leaving us and has signed on to join the rodeo team at Southeastern Oklahoma."
Northwest will only send five contestants to the final rodeo in Texarkana, Ark., April 27-29 with some already out of the running for nationals.
