LAS VEGAS, Nevada (Oct. 30, 2009) – North Carolina’s JB Mauney could give you 25,000 reasons why tonight’s round win, in round one of the 2009 PBR World Finals championship, is so important.
But, even with $25,000 in his pocket, it really comes down to one thing: he moved that much closer to the coveted gold PBR World Champion buckle.
With round one of the closest title race in PBR history kicking off tonight at the Thomas and Mack Center, on the campus of UNLV, Mauney – the number three man in the chase – inched a little closer to reigning world champion Guilherme Marchi and points leader Kody Lostroh.
Mauney is just 779.25 points out of the lead, but Marchi and Lostroh aren’t going to make it easy for him to steal the title away. If JB wants it, he’s going to have to earn it, and he made a good start on achieving that goal in round one, riding “Chester” (Mendell/Jaeger) for 89.75 points.
He’s not the only one that showed up ready to ride. Lostroh, who has held the points standing lead for about half of the season, rode “Red Kat” (GL Bucking Bulls/Page/Buck) for 84 points, finishing out of the money in 17th place (out of 44 riders). But, like Mauney, it’s pretty evident Lostroh is looking at the big picture, and just taking one bull at a time riding toward that buckle.
Already owning a buckle – the 2008 PBR World Champion buckle – has only made Marchi hungrier for another. Marchi headed into the Finals in second place in the standings, but stubbed his toe slightly in round one, bucking off “Monkey Blood” (Frontier) at the 3.4 second mark.
As if the World Champion race wasn’t hot enough already, that little slip let Lostroh get a little further away, and Mauney a little closer.
While Lostroh is Colorado’s hope for a buckle this year, it was his friend and traveling partner, fellow Colorado cowboy Josh Koschel who stepped out to the lead about halfway through the night, scoring 89.25 points on “Bad Moon” (Duncan & Evans). The rest of the bull riders spent the rest of the night trying to catch him. With Mauney sneaking past by a half-point, Koschel still finished an impressive 2nd in the round, and put $18,000 in his pocket.
There were 19 qualified rides from the 44 bull riders – the top 40, and the top ranking bull rider from Mexico, Canada, Australia and Brazil – and only one re-ride. Even so, Friday night continued the trend set in Connecticut two weeks ago, when in four rounds of riding no one hit the 90-point mark all weekend. Hopefully Halloween night’s round two – with the always popular (fan-wise, anyway) “Rank Pen” – will break that streak and set off the confetti cannons.
Third in round one was New Mexico’s Travis Briscoe, at 88.75 points on “Little Juicy” (Don Kish), followed in 4th by Brian Canter, making his return to the BFTS tour at the Finals, after a long absence recovering from a damaged knee. Canter showed that, despite a limp following his ride, his knee and the rest of the Tiny Tarheel are ride-ready, scoring 88.5 points on “Rio Grande” (Box K Cattle) early in the night. Hopefully his $10,000 payday will help ease some of the aches and pains he was feeling after his ride.
The Oregon veteran Ross Coleman kicked off the entire night, first out of the chutes, to the tune of 88.25 points on “Cat Man Do” (#10 Bucking Bulls). Coleman grabbed the last bit of round money out of the PBR’s wallet with that ride, pocketing $5,000 and finishing the round in fifth.
Sixth through 8th places were shared at 88 points by Mike Lee (Soulja Boy from Priest Creek), Canadian Aaron Roy (Charlie Bullware from Moreno and Chadwick) and Ryan McConnel (Shotgun Willy from Holman Bucking Bulls). There wasn’t any prize money to go with those scores, but they were solid enough to give the trio strong picks in the draft for round two, a good start on the Finals average, and McConnel was likely feeling pretty darned good just to be there to compete at all, after flipping his truck multiple times in an accident earlier this week. Lee is destined for the "blooper reel," however, despite his good ride, when he celebrated his successful ride in the arena ... and then was promptly freight train'd by the bull, which hadn't left yet. Thankfully Lee walked away with nothing worse than a little embarrassment.
RodeoAttitude’s own Dustin Elliott took ninth place with 87.75 on “Outa Da Blue” (Circle T), and newbie to the BFTS Elliot Jacoby and Brazil’s Edimundo Gomes shared 10th and 11th places, with 87.5 points on “California Dreaming” (Frontier Teague McBride Wegman) and “Cleo’s Pet” (Mark Ward) respectively.
The lone reride of the night went to Chris Shivers, whose bull, “Bad Blood” (Dakota Rodeo/Struve), took at knee and sent Shivers to the dirt at the 5.2 second mark. At first Shivers was told no re-ride, but then a judge’s review reversed the decision. Shivers came back on “Kabookie” late in the night, but fared even worse, bucking off at 2.9 seconds.
The only other challenge of the round was by Wiley Petersen. Petersen slapped the replay button when the clock read 7.9 seconds when he hit the dirt after losing the battle with “Turf War” (Jeff Robinson). The review showed an even shorter ride, at 7.5 seconds, and the challenge will cost Petersen $500, but it’s doubtful any rider would have let that chance slip by unchallenged.
The round started with an opening that spotlighted a fan-favorite bull, “Pandora’s Box” (Dakota Rodeo/Winston Loe) which is retiring. The bull, which isn’t slated to perform at the World Finals, has an 87.7 percent buck off rate in its PBR career and has only been ridden eight times in 65 outs.
With Saturday night’s round two falling on Halloween, it’s sure to be creepy and kooky in Thomas and Mack, and 44 riders facing off against the rankest of the PBR’s rank bulls. Check back at Rodeoattitude to see who soars, who stumbles and where the battle for the gold buckle stands.
