LARAMIE, Wyo. – While the Chadron State College rodeo team only mustered three top-five finishes in last weekend's Laramie rodeo hosted by the University of Wyoming, the end of the regular season meant two CSC seniors who had previously built up enough points have officially qualified for the College Finals Rodeo in Casper, Wyoming from June 15-21.

They are breakaway roper Brooke McCully and tie down roper Jake Chasek. The two Nebraska natives will be CSC's first representatives at the national rodeo since 2021, when the entire women's team qualified and Brianna Williams placed fourth in breakaway roping. 

McCully finished as the runner-up in this year's regional breakaway standings while Chasek tied for third in the tie down competition. Normally, just the top three in each event are eligible to advance to nationals, but both Chasek and Cory Bomhoff of Laramie County Community College, who each finished with 495 points to share third in the regional standings, will be qualifiers. Dalton Porch of Gillette College is the tie down regional winner with 815 points and Tate Talkington of Northeastern Junior College at Sterling, Colo., is the runner-up with 710.

McCully finished the regional breakaway standings with 456 points to claim second for the season in an event that had nearly 100 contestants at all 10 rodeos. She tallied a bulk of her points last fall when she was the breakaway winner at two rodeos and placed second at a third event. University of Wyoming cowgirls took first and third in the region, as the regional winner is Landry Haugen with 489.33 points while Jordyn McNance is the third CFR qualifier with 400.

Chadron State freshman Mejrusa Rustemovic of Kiowa, Colorado, made a strong bid to qualify for the national finals in the barrel race. She and her gray gelding, Player, placed among the top six in the barrels at five of the 10 rodeos during the year. They won first twice and were second once. They tallied 520 points, but it left them in fourth place, 50 points shy of making the top three. 

Last weekend in Laramie, Rustemovic was 12^th among the 95 entries in the long go-round at the UW rodeo in 15 seconds flat.  It was only 12 hundredths of a second shy of making the top 10 and advancing to the finals.  

McCully caught her calf in 2.2 seconds in the first go-round a Laramie this past weekend, but failed to catch the calf in the finals on Sunday. Chasek did not score at the UW rodeo because he broke the barrier in the long go-round, but at the Casper College rodeo two weeks ago, he won the tie down title to earn 135 points. That was just enough, as it turned out, to forge the tie for third and earn the right to return to Casper in June.

One of Chadron State's highest placers this past weekend was senior Elle Ravenscroft of Cody, Nebraska, who was fifth in breakaway roping with times of 2.2 and 3.3 seconds. Two CSC bareback riders from Nebraska, Tanner Olsen of Gordon and Cinch Kiger of Overton, placed sixth and seventh, respectively, in that event. Olsen scored 73 and 75 points on his broncs while Kiger earned 72 and 74 points.  Also, Rex Day of Bartlett, Nebraska, tied for fifth in steer wrestling after completing his runs in 4.9 and 9.5 seconds.