Barrel racing success helps EMCC

MAGNOLIA, Ark. — East Mississippi Commu­nity College’s rodeo teams placed second in women’s competition and fifth in men’s action this past weekend at Southern Arkansas Uni­versity’s Annual Intercol­legiate Rodeo. The three-day event con­cluded Saturday night at SAU’s Story Arena.

With all 240 of their team points coming in the barrel racing event, the EMCC women fin­ished 55 points behind the University of West Alabama. Missouri Valley College placed third in the women’s standings with 180 points.

The EMCC Lions fin­ished just 45 points out of fourth place behind host Southern Arkansas in the men’s standings. MVC easily claimed the men’s team title with 670 total points, followed by West Alabama and UT Martin with 450 and 440 points, respectively.

Leading the way again for the EMCC women’s team, Jaylie Matthews earned her third Ozark Region barrel racing win in four events this fall season after previously prevailing at Missouri Valley and West Alabama to open the season. With winning times of 13.93 and 13.85 seconds at SAU, she collected the maximum 180 points to claim her 10th career Ozark Region regular-season barrel racing vic­tory.

The reigning CNFR re­serve champion barrel racer and 2019-20 Ozark Region champion previ­ously secured four titles in her specialty event last year and three first-place finishes during the pan­demic-shortened 2019-20 rodeo season.

Jaylie’s younger sister, Taycie, settled for fourth place with 60 points at SAU on the heels of win­ning the barrel racing event at the Three Rivers College rodeo held three weeks ago (Oct. 14-16) in Sikeston, Mo.

The Matthews sisters, from Wynne, Ark., have now combined to earn 16 career Ozark Region barrel racing event wins between them dating back to the 2019-20 rodeo season. Taycie won five times last year on the way to claiming the 2020-21 Ozark Re­gion regular-season bar­rel racing title. In addition to having teamed to win the first four barrel racing events this season in Ozark Re­gion competition, the Matthews sisters com­bined to claim nine of the 10 Ozark Region reg­ular-season barrel racing events during the 2020-21 season.

Also for the EMCC women, barrel racer Josie Luttrell (Morgan­field, KY) picked up 50 individual points after tying for fifth place this past weekend.

The EMCC men also earned an event title at Southern Arkansas, as brothers Cooper and Cade Cowan (Lamar) won the team roping competition with times and 5.5 and 7.0 seconds.

Scooba product Matt Watt picked up 70 total points for the Lions, scor­ing 50 points in team roping with SAU’s Booker McCutchen as well as earning 20 points in the tie-down roping event.

EMCC’s Laine Moore (Albertville, AL) grabbed 40 additional points in tie-down roping, while Myles Neighbors (Ben­ton, AR) secured 30 points in steer wrestling to round out the Lions’ scoring in men’s compe­tition.

Coach Morgan Goodrich’s East Missis­sippi rodeo teams are scheduled to conclude the fall season, Nov. 18-20, at Murray State Uni­versity in Murray, Ky.