Your future, our focus
Trappers have work ahead this spring
When collegiate rodeo action resumes in the spring, Northwest College bareback rider Jordan Gill will be the man everyone is trying to catch. At the midway point of the 2010-2011 college rodeo season, Gill holds a 179-point lead in the Big Sky Region standings.
If he can hold that position through five more rodeos this spring, Gill will be crowned the Big Sky Region champion and earn spot in the 2011 College National Finals Rodeo. If any of his Trapper teammates look to join him, they’ll have some work to do over the back half of the year. Gill is the only Northwest College competitor to sit in the top three of an event at rodeo’s mid-year break.
That’s not to say the Trappers’ entry list to the CNFR next June will be a short one. Several other Northwest College riders are well-positioned for a second-half surge.
Clinton Griffis sits fifth in the bareback standings, chasing Gill. He’s staring at roughly a 170-point gap to close the ground between himself and the top three.
Bull riders Cayd Kluesner and Eric Fleming sit fourth and fifth, respectively in the standings. Kluesner is just 50 points out of an automatic spot in the CNFR field with Fleming another 27 points back.
On the women’s side, Haily Hamlin sits as the Trappers’ top performer through the fall semester. Hamlin is fifth overall in the breakaway roping standings, 132 points out of a CNFR qualification spot. Steffani Hofrichter is eighth overall in the standings.
Pamela Vanek is sixth overall in goat tying with a season score of 243.5 points. She’ll need an improvement of more than 100 points this spring to bridge the distance in the standings. Hofrichter is ninth overall in the event.
Also looking at a gap of slightly more than 100 points is Trapper barrel racer Dannielle Marcin. Marcin presently resides in seventh position overall.
The only other Trappers to appear in the top 10 of an event at the midway point of the season are header-heeler team roping combo of Jessica Ehlers and Cole Owens. The duo is in 10th place with lots of traffic ahead of them in the standings.
Northwest College wrapped up first-semester rodeo action last weekend in Dillon, placing third as a men’s team and fourth among the women’s teams in attendance. Gill captured his second bareback title of the fall sememster with a 15-point win over Montana, Western’s Chase Redfield.
Fleming placed third for the Trappers in bull riding at the weekend event. Vanek was third in goat tying to give Northwest their only top three finishers.
The collegiate rodeo season resumes in April. The Trappers will compete in five spring semester rodeos as they look to vault up the Big Sky Region standings.