CASPER, WY – Thursday night was a light night in competition for the Laramie County Community College rodeo team as only Reece Wadhams was in action in team roping at the College National Finals Rodeo.
There were a total of three events the Golden Eagles were keeping an eye on as juniors Chance Derner and Payton Feyder were still waiting for their final goes on Friday night in tie down and breakaway in search of round wins.
Wadhams entered the night needing a few things to break his way in order to make in back to Saturday’s championships, but the junior from Pueblo, Colorado and his partner Rio Nutter were in the hunt after catching their second steer in 6.6 during Tuesday’s slack round.
The team nearly was able to pick up a clean catch on their run, but the judge ruled that it was only one leg on the heel attempt and a 7.5 turned into a 12.5 on the run.
“It happens,” Wadhams said about not being able to make it a clean catch. “Like my dad says, he’d like to meet the guy that can catch them all. I’m just glad we are here and want to be back next year to show them what else we got.”
“They made a good run, kind of a tough go for Reece,” added Head Coach Seth Glause. “The steer kind of jumped away from him and he had to take an extra swing, the judge called a plus five on it, but that’s how it goes.”
The duo would have been in 10th place going into the final performance with a chance to make Saturday’s final had they picked up the second leg, but as it stands, they drop to 14th in the average on a pair of catches.
Wadhams said the experience is still something that has him looking forward to returning to the college stage again next season as a senior after he was on the fence about returning before that.
“It was a great experience and I definitely learned a lot,” he added. “I wasn’t planning on coming back until after our first steer here. Definitely had a lot of fun.”
The team of Wadhams and Nutter will be competing in about 30 rodeos over the summer and Glause said that will do nothing but improve their confidence going into the 2023-24 season.
“Reece ropes at that level already and to just go out there and compete with the top guys out there in the world is only going to push him to be better and push him to improve more. He’s just a tremendous talent,” he said.
In tie down, Derner will be searching for a round win and his target time is 8.2 to get at least a share of the lead in the final performance of the rodeo. Derner has a chance to pick up points as a sub nine second run would put him in the top five in the third go.
Breakaway is also where Feyder will be searching for a round win with a time to beat of 2.0 in what has been a blistering round of times at the rodeo with 13 of the athletes posting times under three seconds going into the final round.
She already proved she has a chance after nearly posting a time of 2.3 in her second go if it wasn’t for a broken barrier, which would have placed her in third for the current round and would have been fifth in the second go.
“Both of them are capable of winning the round,” Glause said. “Both of them will be going for broke and sometimes that’s when the fireworks happen and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m excited to see what they do and what they can put together.”
The final performance round begins at 7:00 PM from the Casper Events Center and can be viewed on ESPN+ for those not able to attend.