Jake Orman and Will Woodfin won the open division of the Super Tuesday Team Roping at Ector County Coliseum.
The event, which leads into the SandHills Stock Show and Rodeo, paid out more than $55,000 in prize money with Orman and Woodfin splitting the $14,500 first prize.
“It gives us the chance to get the year started off right on a real positive note,” said Woodfin, the heeler. “And also for our pocketbooks just to get going. We’ve got some rodeos coming up. We’re headed to Denver and Fort Worth. It just gets us off on the right foot.”
Orman and Woodfin clocked a time of 6.01 seconds in the short go for an aggregate time of 33.41 seconds. That was 1.4 seconds better than runners-up Luke Brown and Junior Nogueira, who had a run of 6.52 seconds in the short go to briefly take the lead.
Marcus Theriot and Paul Eaves finished third at 35.35 with JoJo LeMond of Andrews and Randon Adams fourth at 36.41. Jesse Stipes and Jake Cooper Clay were fifth at 36.63.
Orman and Woodfin entered the short go as the top seeds with nearly a one-second lead on Brown and Nogueira. Their chances of finishing in the money improved quickly as the first five teams all posted no time in the short go.
Brown enjoyed a successful evening, as he finished sixth in the open division with heeler Jake Long, and the pair also won the team match roping competition. In the match roping, nine teams vied to survive three elimination rounds with the final two teams squaring off in a two-run final.
Brown and Long overcame a 4.38 second deficit on the second run of the final to defeat Brock Hanson and Ryan Motes, who were assessed a five-second penalty on their run when Motes caught just one leg of the steer. Brown and Long posted an aggregate time of 15.32 seconds, while Hanson and Motes totaled 17.62 seconds.
Reigning world champions Erich Rogers and Cory Petska had the fastest single run of the competition with a time of 4.65 seconds in the second round, but were eliminated in the semifinals by nearly half a second.
Header Clay Smith and heeler Walt Woodard were the professional winners in the evening’s pro-am competition. In the amateur-heeler division, Smith paired with Heath Beard of Midland to clock 6.03 seconds in the short go for a total time of 27.29. Cody Snow and Odessa’s Darian Hernandez had the only other time in the round with a sizzling 4.53 run to finish second at 33.33.
In the amateur headers division, Woodard teamed Blake Catavio to finish with a total tome of 19.34 seconds after going 6.79 in the short go. Kobe Miller and Ryon Tittel were second in 22.64 seconds and Tittel also finished third, heeling for Midland’s Skyler Dominguez, at 24.29.
Mertzon’s Tyler West won a three-man junior match calf roping to claim a scholarship to Odessa College. West finished with an aggregate time of 32.36 seconds on three head.
