Feather River College Rodeo Kicks off the ’23 Spring Season

The Feather River College rodeo team hit the road last week as they opened their spring season up at the West Hills College Rodeo in Coalinga, CA. The Golden Eagles faced all of the West Coast Region schools such as University of Las Vegas, Cal Poly State University, Lassen Community College, and Fresno State University. The weekend consisted of a one header and long/short go format.

For the first rodeo, the men's team finished second place and the women's team finished fifth. Weston Smith of Colfax, CA was the Reserve Champion All-Around cowboy winning the tie-down roping event and placing second in the team roping with his twin brother, Wyatt Smith. Emily Kramer finished 5th in the women's all-around race with a 5th place finish in the goat tying and a 6th place run in the breakaway.

Also having success in the one header round was Caden Grisedale (3rd in saddle bronc, 4th in tie-down), Cole Dodds (3rd in tie-down), Cobie Dodds (5th in tie-down, 3rd in steer wrestling), Wyatt Smith (7th in tie-down, 2nd in team roping), Austin Van Nest (6th in steer wrestling), and Nikki Saurman (8th in barrel racing).

The second rodeo was a success with 13 Feather River College athletes making it back to the top ten short round Saturday night. FRC won the men's team championship with the top three men, Wyatt Smith, Cody Stewart, and Caden Grisedale, winning first through third in the all-around respectively.

The following individuals finished in the top ten in their events in the long/short go average – Caden Grisedale (4th place saddle bronc, 7th place steer wrestling, 5th team roping heeler), Cody Stewart (1st place tie-down roping, 2nd place team roping heeler), Wyatt Smith (2nd place tie-down roping, 1st place team roping heeler), Cole Dodds (5th place tie-down roping), Alexander Kruger (9th place tie-down roping), Cobie Dodds (3rd place steer wrestling), Weston Smith (1st place team roping header), Kolton King (5th place team roping header), Kylie Askew (6th place breakaway roping).

"Our men's team is right on track to win our region," assured the college's rodeo coach Tess Turk. "I was impressed on how well the team did overall with the challenges they've been facing to practice consistently with all of the snow accumulation lately. We are looking forward to the two remaining rodeos of the regular season to see who will represent Feather River College at nationals in June in Casper, WY."

The rodeo team now has a four week break before its next rodeo at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo held on April 14th and 15th. They will finish out their regular season in Las Vegas March 12th and 13th.
All of these results can be seen at Standings: NIRA- National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association under the West Coast Region link.

 Photography by Nicole Saurman