Makayla Boots in her final round at CNFR.
CASPER, Wyo. — The Cochise Rodeo Team made it to the College National Finals Rodeo (CNFR), championship round this past Saturday.
Georgia Diez and Makayla Boots represented the Apaches in the arena for the final round, but as fate would have it, the two walked away from the championship without a first place title to escort them home.
Georgia Diez placed 13th in the Nation for Barrel Racing and 3rd in the Nation for Goat Tying. She fastened her final goat in 7.2 seconds only to tie with three other competitors for the national championship title and be booted to 3rd place by end of the competition.
Makayla Boots made a great final run, timing a 6.7 for Goat Tying. She finished 7th in the Nation.
“I feel good. It was a lot of adrenalin and a lot of fun,” Makayla explained, just after she finished her final competition at Nationals. “It’s good to go out in front of all these people and perform. I wish I could have finished a little bit better, but I’m always happy for the opportunity to be here.”
The Cochise College women’s rodeo coach, Lynn Smith, watched the girls compete during Nationals.
“They are a little disappointed in how it turned out,” she explained. “But when they take a break and step back and let it sink in, over the years, they are going to realize all that they have accomplished.”
For those who did not make it to the championship round: Hayley Dalton-Estes, a first timer at Nationals, finished 13th in the Breakaway Roping. She roped her final calf in 3.7 seconds, just missing out on the top 12 to make the short round on Saturday’s championship round. Hayley Dalton also placed 27th in the Nation for Goat Tying.
Janey Reeves roped her final calf as a Cochise Apache in 4.2 seconds. After 3 long rounds of Breakaway Roping, this concluded her time at the 2016 CNFR. She placed 33rd in the Nation for Breakaway Roping and 36th in the Nation for Goat Tying.
The Cochise College men’s rodeo coach, Rick Smith, was also at Nationals.
“They’ve given us everything they’ve got,” he explained. “We figured it out. Those four girls are putting in 80 hours a week between college, practice, and they all have three or four horses they take care of -the effort they give, as a coach, you just cannot ask for more than that. I’ve been doing this for 22 years, and I’ve never seen four people work as hard at an individual sport like this.”
Overall, the Cochise College women’s team ranked 8th in the Nation in the CNFR’s standings. All four girls from the Cochise women’s rodeo team will transfer from Cochise College with a 3.5 GPA or higher.
In the men’s team, Jalen Joaquin made it to the end of the week scoring 72.50 on his 3rd round horse in Saddle Bronc Riding, and he finished 14th in the Nation. He also finished 21st in the Nation for Bull Riding.
Bobby Flores placed 14th in the Nation for Team Roping. Jake Burwash finished 25th in the Nation for Saddle Bronc Riding with a total of 65 points and Rio Lee finished 29th in the Nation for Bareback Riding totaling 127 points.