{"id":6256,"date":"2017-06-29T09:45:54","date_gmt":"2017-06-29T14:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/?p=6256"},"modified":"2017-06-29T09:46:24","modified_gmt":"2017-06-29T14:46:24","slug":"sau-rodeo-earns-titles-college-national-finals-wyoming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/2017\/sau-rodeo-earns-titles-college-national-finals-wyoming\/","title":{"rendered":"SAU Rodeo earns titles at College National Finals in Wyoming"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> The Southern Arkansas University Rodeo Team enjoyed another successful season and finished the year strong at the College National Finals in Casper, Wyoming, earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Hannah Springer, a native of Lavaca, Arkansas, won the Reserve National Champion Breakaway Roper title in the Finals, and the Women\u2019s Team finished with a Top 10 National Placing, said Rusty Hayes, coach of the rodeo team. \u201cThis is our third consecutive year for an individual National or Reserve title and Top 10 team placing,\u201d Hayes said. It is the 11th<\/sup> straight year for the team to go to Finals in Casper.<\/p>\n

Student-athletes representing SAU at this year\u2019s Finals included Springer; Michaela Caudle, of Horatio, Arkansas; Ashton Glascock, from Ashland, Missouri; Jacie Sullivan, from Mount Vernon, Arkansas; Cooper Lee, from Quitman, Arkansas; Britt Driggers, from Hot Springs, Arkansas and West Smith, from Emmet, Ark.<\/p>\n

The Women\u2019s Team finished 2016-2017 as the Reserve Champions of the Ozark Region while the Men\u2019s Team placed third in the Region. Hayes said he thought this year\u2019s team was \u201cthe strongest I\u2019ve seen\u201d and expressed little surprise at its success on the national level.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not unexpected with the amount of talent that we have,\u201d Hayes said. \u201cThis is one of the most talented teams I\u2019ve ever taken to Finals, particularly on the women\u2019s side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Springer graduated in May with a bachelor\u2019s in Agriculture Business, Hayes said the remaining women on the team \u201care extremely talented and I feel that one of them at least will win a national title before she\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Springer, the trip to Casper was an emotional experience and hard-earned.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cI made it to College Finals my freshman year,\u201d she said, \u201cbut then I had a couple of tough years and I didn\u2019t make it my sophomore or junior years. I decided to come at it from a different angle, really work at it, and do it my senior year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the goal she set,\u201d Hayes said of her determination to qualify for Casper this year. \u201cWell before our regular season ended, we talked about her winning the Region and making it to Finals. She prepared hard for it. She was in the zone at Finals, quietly going about her business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Springer has been participating in rodeo since the seventh grade, starting in barrel racing and then learning to rope. \u201cMy dad is a state trooper and mom barrel raced,\u201d she said. \u201cI got into roping on the same black mare I ride today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mare, Jet, is an important part of her life and rodeo success.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe basically taught ourselves to rope,\u201d Springer said. \u201cShe\u2019s very special to me. A man who didn\u2019t like to keep mares let me take her home one day and then years down the road, I bought her. She\u2019s been a blessing and is definitely my best friend. People know her; they always ask about her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Springer made national rodeo finals throughout her junior and high school years, winning the junior high finals in Gallop, New Mexico, in 2009, and placing third in the high school finals in her junior year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I wanted to college rodeo but I didn\u2019t know where,\u201d Springer said. \u201cI really wanted to stay in Arkansas. My dad, who serves in the U.S. Navy, got deployed to Afghanistan, and I wanted to stay close to home. I had heard of SAU Rodeo, it\u2019s the only large rodeo team in the area. Rusty called me about February of my senior year and offered me a really good scholarship. I couldn\u2019t pass it up. I\u2019m very thankful for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just prior to leaving for College Finals in Wyoming, Springer joined the SAU team that traveled to Paris, France. \u201cI graduated May 5, flew to Paris on May 9, got back on May 15 and left on June 7 for Casper,\u201d she said. \u201cParis was amazing. You always dream about seeing the Eiffel Tower, but standing in front of it is unbelievable. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I truly loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

While in France, Springer made sure that Jet kept in shape. \u201cI basically sent her for a spa week,\u201d she laughed. \u201cShe swam every day, she got massages and cold wraps. She needed to be ready (for Finals). When I got back we had two full weeks before we had to leave, so I rode her every day and practiced two or three times a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Finals, Springer had a few ups and downs but finished on a high note, winning reserve breakaway roper. \u201cI knew my mare was in the best shape she could be, but there was a little doubt. I was just trying to enjoy it. I thought, \u2018This is it, I might not get to ever do this again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Though she \u201cdrew some really great calves\u201d during competition, \u201cyou want your calf to run strong and straight, and not stop.\u201d The calf she drew for her final event did stop, preventing her from winning the national championship by four-tenths of a second. \u201cI\u2019m thankful to have won Reserve,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Now that she\u2019s back in Magnolia and has some time to breathe, Springer is contemplating her next steps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t totally decided what I want to do yet,\u201d she said. \u201cI am going to pursue A Masters of Business Administration at SAU and I might return to the College Finals next year. If it\u2019s what God wants, it will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the rodeo team \u201cis very close, we like to see each other do well. They are encouraging me to come back next year.\u201d Springer also had high praise for her coach. \u201cEveryone loves Rusty. He\u2019s a really good father figure. He\u2019s always there, no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is the new manager of Story Arena and is working to book events into the arena. \u201cThe town is very supportive of the team, and this is a great facility,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a really good program going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go to the Nationals every year for 11 years, that\u2019s what you come to expect,\u201d he said. \u201cThe competition is tough. We go up against Sam Houston University, the University of Oklahoma, University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and a hundred others, and we\u2019re going out and winning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Southern Arkansas University Rodeo Team enjoyed another successful season and finished the year strong at the College National Finals in Casper, Wyoming, earlier this month. Hannah Springer, a native of Lavaca, Arkansas, won the Reserve National Champion Breakaway Roper title in the Finals, and the Women\u2019s Team finished with a Top 10 National Placing,… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":564,"featured_media":6258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[92,32641,7753,195],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-athletics","8":"category-featured-layout","9":"category-homepage","10":"category-rodeo","11":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/564"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}