Veteran Group Leads UW Rodeo Into College National Finals Rodeo

Experience: That will help tremendously when the University of Wyoming men’s and women’s rodeo teams compete Sunday-Saturday, June 9-15, at the College National Finals Rodeo (CNFR) in Casper.

The Cowboys and Cowgirls will send full six-man and four-woman points teams to the CNFR based on another successful season in the Central Rocky Mountain Region (CRMR). The UW men won their sixth consecutive regional title, while the women were second in the CRMR.

The top two teams in all 11 regions nationwide earn automatic bids to collegiate rodeo’s biggest show, drawing more than 400 competitors.

For UW, half of the men and women student-athletes on the points teams have earned multiple trips to the CNFR during their collegiate careers, bringing in nearly 20 combined years of leadership into the seven-day event.

Leading the way is graduate student Kenna McNeill, from Hobbs, N.M., who will make her sixth straight CNFR appearance, while teammates Cam Jensen, of Arthur, Neb., and Bodie Mattson, of Sturgis, S.D., are both competing in their fourth finals.

“CNFR experience is very valuable. The production is very different from all of the other college rodeos we go to,” says UW head Coach Seth Glause. “So, for the students who have been here and experienced it, they have a leg up on the competition. We are fortunate to have a solid lineup of veterans leading the way, and we are fortunate to have senior leaders who are able to share their experiences as well.”

The Cowboys will have plenty of qualifiers in the roping events and in another timed event -- steer wrestling -- on the points team. The men have just one roughstock competitor who qualified from the other end of the arena in bareback riding.

Competing at the CNFR for the Cowboys’ points team will be Kaden Berger, of Saratoga, David Gallagher, from Brighton, Colo., and Jensen, all in steer wrestling; Greybull’s Colton Farrow in bareback riding; Mattson will do double duty competing in both tie down roping and in team roping with Roan Weil, from Casper College; and Weston Mills, of Gillette, with his team roping partner Coy Johnson, from Gillette College.

Other UW qualifiers who earned CNFR bids for finishing among the top three in their respective events during the regular season are Rio Nutter, of Rapid City, S.D., and team roping partner Reece Wadhams, of Laramie County Community College; Gillette’s Quincy Reynolds, with his team roping partner Trevor Sorge, from Gillette College; and Emmit Ross, of Jackson, in bull riding.

The Cowgirls will have at least one qualifier on the points team competing in one of the three women’s events: Riata Day, of Fleming, Colo., in goat tying; Cheyenne’s Jordyn McNamee and Landry Haugen, of Sturgis, in breakaway roping; and McNeill in barrel racing.

The UW women had one other qualifier: Olivia Lay, of Elbert, Colo., in breakaway roping.

“The students are looking great. We have held weekly practices for the student-athletes who have been in Laramie since the season concluded,” Glause says. “All of our students have been competing at rodeos for the last month and a half and have been seeing some success.”

If experience counts for the team’s success, then having coaches who also competed at the CNFR in their own collegiate careers should count for something.

Glause is making his fifth trip to the CNFR: twice as a head coach and three times as a roughstock competitor for Central Wyoming College and Oklahoma Panhandle State University in Goodwell, Okla. First-year UW Cowgirls Coach Jacey Hupp was a five-time CNFR qualifier for South Dakota State University.

The Cowgirls placed third in the final CNFR team standing last season, while the Cowboys finished 12th overall.

“We look forward to representing the Cowboy State with pride when we compete in Casper,” Glause says. “I look for our students to continue to do what got them to this level. I want to see them follow their processes and give a winning effort every time they compete.”