EMCC has strong rodeo showing at UWA event
East Mississippi Community College earned third-place team finishes on both the men’s and women’s sides during the UWA Rodeo Showdown held two weekends ago on the University of West Alabama campus. The three-day Ozark Region event concluded with Saturday’s championship round contested at UWA’s Hines-Spree Rodeo Complex.
Coach Morgan Goodrich’s East Mississippi teams will continue Ozark Region rodeo action at Three Rivers College this weekend in Sikeston, Mo.
Finishing third for the second straight week to open the fall season, the EMCC men’s team was led by a trio of team roping tandems that combined for 335 of the Lions’ 385 total team points. Brothers Cade and Cooper Cowan, out of Marshall Academy, claimed their fourth career Ozark Region event title by posting times of 6.3 and 5.4 seconds to earn 160 first-place team points at UWA.
The Lions also earned 125 third-place team points in team roping this past weekend when Tanner Brown and Koby Sanchez followed a winning first-round time of 5.7 seconds with a 6.5 clocking in the short-go round. EMCC rounded out its collective team roping effort with freshman twin brothers Colton and Wyatt Allen scoring 50 team points on their second-round run of 6.2 seconds.
The remainder of EMCC’s team scoring on the men’s side came from Gavin Lee’s 40 points earned in bareback riding and Brown adding 10 points in tie-down roping.
The EMCC women’s squad benefitted from Juliana Jennings’ first-place performance in the breakaway roping event that accounted for all 160 team points after solid second-place runs of 2.5 and 3.4 seconds.
In the final team standings from UWA this past weekend, the West Alabama women prevailed for the second straight week with a winning total of 355 points to finish 105 points ahead of runner-up UT Martin. The Missouri Valley College men posted another dominant performance by outdistancing Pearl River, 900-505, for their second team title in as many weeks to open the 2022-23 season.
Three weeks ago the men’s rodeo team opened the 2022-23 season with a third-place finish at the Viking Stampede Rodeo hosted by Missouri Valley College.
The EMCC men compiled 295 team points in two events by totaling 175 points in team roping and 120 points in tie-down roping. The Lions had seven cowboys participating in Saturday’s team roping finals, led by brothers Cade and Cooper Cowan’s fourth-place finish as a result of their winning time of 6.1 seconds in the opening round.
EMCC’s Laine Moore teamed with Cannon Smith of UT Martin to earn 70 fifth-place points for the Lions in team roping. The EMCC tandem of Tanner Brown and Koby Sanchez secured 25 team points, while twin brothers Colton and Wyatt Allen advanced to the short-go round in their collegiate debut but did not score.
Highlighted by his first-round effort of 10.9 seconds in tie-down roping, Kemper Academy product Matt Watt collected 100 points for the Lions for his fourth-place finish. EMCC’s Moore added 20 points in the event, and Brown also advanced to the tie-down roping finals but did not produce any points.