Dickinson State Rodeo rides to victory at Mid-Plains Stampede
Sep. 21—NORTH PLATTE, Ne. — The shadows might be getting longer, but the Dickinson State University rodeo team already is getting stronger, as the women took first place in the Mid Plains Community College Stampede last weekend and the men's team improved — from a fourth-place finish in the opening week of September at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls Stampede — to a second-place showing on day #1 of the Mid Plains event and third-place on day #2.
Last-weekend's Mid Plains Stampede was actually a combination of two separate rodeos, and Dickinson State's women's team jumped four places from day #1 to day #2. On day #2, the women's team took first by more-than doubling the next-closest score with 455 points to the University of South Dakota's 210. On day #1, Kelly Jo Bang took the women's all-around with 235 points.
Quite a few of the men had solid showings during both stampedes, with Landon Sivertsen earning a first-place 19.7 time/score on day #2 in tie-down roping and Tanner Jarrett earned first-place in bareback riding with a 56, also on day #2.
Those performances helped the men's team to an overall 370 in the stampede on day #2, behind South Dakota State University's 440 and top-team Iowa Central Community College's 610.
The individual results from day #2 also included Sterling Lee's third-place finish in team-roping/header with a 6.9 time/score and Bang's second-place 35.98 in barrel-racing, with her teammate, Laney Johnson, coming in close behind with a third-place 36.38. The breakaway-roping event was won by DSU's Morgan Foss with a 7.1, tied with Bang at the same score, but the standings showed Bang with a second-place finish. Lacey Forsness also performed well in the event with a time/score of 3.4, and meanwhile Kailyn Groves took a third-place 15.5 in goat tying to push DSU across the finish line in first-place for the day.
On day #1, DSU's men's team brought home second-place on 739.5 overall points, behind Iowa Central CC's 802.5, while the women's team took fourth with a 91.5 — well behind Black Hills State University's 422.
Also on day #1, Jory Boote took first-place in the men's all-around with a whopping 242 points, and Sivertsen finished seventh with a 147.5 overall score.
Among other individual, excellent performances for the team were Jarrett's first-place finish in bareback riding with a 63 and Boote's second-place finish in tie-down roping with a 10 and Sivertsen's fifth-place of 11.7 in the same event. Sterling Lee was just edged out for first in Steer wrestling with a second-place 5.0 score and Laine Isaak took fourth in the same event with a 10.4. The top team-roping/heeler score for DSU came from Boote with a 9.0, just behind the first-place finish of 8.9, and Sivertsen tied for fourth with a 10.4 in an excellent showing for the Blue Hawks in that event.
Over in the women's corral, Bang first with a 2.8 in breakaway-roping and took a seventh-place tie in barrel-racing at 18.36. Also in breakaway-roping, Groves earned a fifth-place 4.0.
Next-up for DSU will be the Iowa Central Community College Stampede this weekend from Sept. 22-23, and rodeo fans from Western North Dakota will want to mark their calendars for the event of the year: The Dickinson State University Rodeo, which will be next weekend from Friday, Sept. 29 through Saturday, Sept. 30. The final event of the first half of the rodeo season will take place the first week of October, from the 6th through the 7th at Buena Vista University in Alta, Iowa before the teams hang up their spurs for the winter.
For more information about the DSU rodeo team, please visit
https://www.dsubluehawks.com/sports/rodeo/index
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