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Austin Gamblers' Dalton Kasel solves Pickle Moonshine for win at Gambler Days

alex lowe
·4 min read
Dalton Kasel, left, and Vitor Leme, right, rode in the Austin Gamblers' first-night win over the Kansas City Outlaws at Gambler Days on Friday night at Moody Coliseum. Kasel scored the Gamblers' only points, and they were enough.
Dalton Kasel, left, and Vitor Leme, right, rode in the Austin Gamblers' first-night win over the Kansas City Outlaws at Gambler Days on Friday night at Moody Coliseum. Kasel scored the Gamblers' only points, and they were enough.

Muleshoe native Dalton Kasel scored 87 points on a successful leadoff ride, powering the Austin Gamblers to an 87-84.5 win over the Kansas City Outlaws in their opening game of the PBR Team Series Gambler Days homestand Friday night at Moody Center.

Kasel’s determined effort atop Pickle Moonshine was enough to top the 84.5 points amassed by Kansas City’s Wingson Henrique da Silva on his opening ride on Big Kiwi. Kasel was the only Gamblers rider to turn in an eight-second complete ride, but his effort was enough to earn Austin the win.

“Dalton was fantastic,” Gamblers head coach Michael Gaffney said. “He knows the bull well. He actually helped raise the bull. The bull spun to the right. He is a left-handed rider. But it doesn’t matter with Dalton. We put him on left spinning bulls, right spinning bulls and he rides them all.”

More: No bull — Austin Gamblers are ready to ride for their 2023 Gambler Days

Kasel's successful ride came at a price. He happened to be on a particularly ornery bull that spun and bucked well after the eight seconds, leaving the rider with a difficult dismount that ended in a hard fall on the dirt.

“Usually what you are trying to do is to find a good spot, if there is such a thing in bull riding, where you can have a controlled get-off,” said Gaffney, a PBR legend and world champion. “That is what he was trying to do, but it didn’t work out as well as we wanted, and he hit the hard ground.”

Austin Gamblers head coach Michael Gaffney saw his team edge the Kansas City Outlaws on the first night of Gambler Days. "A W is a W, even if it is just with one ride," he said.
Austin Gamblers head coach Michael Gaffney saw his team edge the Kansas City Outlaws on the first night of Gambler Days. "A W is a W, even if it is just with one ride," he said.

The Outlaws had a chance for a re-ride after da Silva’s ride but chose instead to take the 84.5 points earned by their leadoff man. With the bulls getting the better of it against both teams, the Outlaws' decision came back to haunt them. Kansas City riders Marcus Mast, Julio Cesar Marques, Koltin Hevalow and Cassio Dias all got tossed before the eight-second mark. Even Gamblers star Jose Vitor Leme couldn't complete his ride, coming up just short of points with a 7.98-second ride on Chain Breaker.

“A W is a W, even if it is just with one ride,” Gaffney said. “This can help us break the ice on this big homestand and help us come back (Saturday) more relaxed and ready for a great performance.”

The win improved the Gamblers' season mark to 10-1 while the Outlaws dropped to 6-5.

In the opening game Friday night, the Carolina Cowboys (6-5) earned the top team score with a 257.25-160, come-from-behind victory over the Texas Rattlers (5-6).

Carolina scored points on rides by Cooper Davis (84.75) atop Empty Glass, Daniel Feitosa (85.75) on Slobber Knocker and Flavio Zivieri (86.75) riding Out Of Control. Still, the Rattlers had a slim chance to snatch the victory on their last ride. But Braidy Randolph came up short of the eight seconds needed for points when he was thrown off of Mike’s Motive after 6.6 seconds.

The Arizona Ridge Riders improved to 3-8 with a 251.75-87.5 win over the Missouri Thunder.

Vitor Losnake scored 87.75 points, taking the best that Smooth Whiskey could offer while Colten Fritzian added 75.75 points atop Blazer and Nick Tetz tallied 88.25 points after surviving a rough ride aboard Nefarious. Missouri’s only points came on a successful opening ride by 18-year-old Kade Madsen, who earned 87.5 points for an eight-second ride on Ah Hell.

In the night’s most thrilling game, the Nashville Stampede gained a razor-thin 173.5-173 victory over the Oklahoma Freedom after Silvano Alves earned 89 points in a ride atop I’m Your Daddy. Alves, a three-time PBR world champion, faced a tall order as he climbed into the chute, needing 88.5 points to tie the game. Delivering a spectacular ride, he earned 89 points, the night’s best total and enough for a walk-off victory.

The Gamblers' homestand continues at 6:45 p.m. Saturday as part of the Gambler Days weekend featuring fan fests each day that include food trucks, drinks, giveaways and live music. The Gamblers will face their in-state rivals, the Texas Rattlers, in their second game of the three-game homestand. Other matchups are the Kansas City Outlaws vs. the Nashville Stampede, the Oklahoma Freedom vs. the Missouri Thunder (2-9), and the Carolina Cowboys vs. the Arizona Ridge Riders.

The final day of action Sunday will begin at 1:45 p.m. Tickets start at $26 and are available through Ticketmaster and the Moody Center website.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin Gamblers win initial game at PBR Gambler Days over Kansas City