EMCC women claim Southern Arkansas rodeo team title with pair of 1-2 event finishes

MAGNOLIA, Ark. — In earning the top two individual finishes in barrel racing and breakaway roping, the East Mississippi Community College women's rodeo team set a program record by totaling 475 team points in claiming the women's team title of the Southern Arkansas University College Rodeo this past weekend.  The EMCC men finished in fifth place at the three-day event held at Story Arena in Magnolia, Arkansas.

Leading the way for the EMCC women were Taycie and Jaylie Matthews, sisters from Wynne, Arkansas, who earned 310 team points between them by placing first and second, respectively, in the barrel racing competition.  With winning runs of 15.07 and 15.09 seconds in collecting the maximum 180 points, younger sister Taycie earned her third win in four Ozark Region rodeos this fall.  Jaylie, the reigning Ozark Region barrel racing champion from a year ago, finished runner-up in the average scoring at SAU after posting times of 15.28 and 15.18 seconds.  Taycie and Jaylie previously claimed the International Professional Rodeo Association's barrel racing world championship title in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

In the breakaway roping event this past weekend, Macayla Womack (Hackett, AR), who transferred to EMCC from Southern Arkansas, collected the maximum 180 individual points with winning efforts of 2.7 and 3.3 seconds.  Kyla Matthews (Athens, TN) placed second in the event by posting times of 3.0 and 3.5 seconds to earn 140 team points for EMCC.

In other women's action for East Mississippi, Mikayla Joh Almond (Olin, NC) garnered 25 team points in goat tying, while Morgan Massa (Ellerslie, GA) grabbed 10 individual points in team roping.

While outdistancing the field by nearly 300 points this past weekend, EMCC captured its seventh women's regional event team title and 15^th overall within the program, including eight men's team wins, since the program's inception in 2010.  EMCC's 475 team points at SAU bettered the school's previous mark of 420 women's team points earned during a regional event team victory at the University of Arkansas at Monticello during the 2019 spring season.

EMCC's men totaled 370 team points at Southern Arkansas to finish only 20 points behind the host team, while placing just 70 points behind team runner-up UT Martin.  Missouri Valley College claimed the men's team title with 610 total points.  

The Lions were again paced by former national collegiate champion Marcus Theriot (Poplarville), who registered his third consecutive tie-down roping regional event title this fall by collecting the maximum 180 points with winning runs of 9.5 and 9.8 seconds.

Also for the EMCC men, third-place finishes by SAU transfer West Smith (Emmet, AR) in team roping and Myles Neighbors (Benton, AR) in steer wrestling secured 120 and 70 points, respectively, for the Lions' cause.

Coach Morgan Goodrich's EMCC rodeo teams are scheduled to close out the fall portion of the 2020 NIRA Ozark Region schedule by competing at Murray State University, Nov. 12-14, in Murray, Kentucky.