EMCC men’s and women’s rodeo teams both claim runner-up honors at Pearl River-hosted event

POPLARVILLE — The East Mississippi Community College men's and women's rodeo teams both featured first-place individual winners along with earning runner-up team honors during this past weekend's Ozark Region rodeo event hosted by Pearl River Community College. The three-day event concluded Saturday evening at the Pearl River County Fairgrounds.

Highlighted by the tandem of Dylan Delmas (Athens, AL) and Waylon Buskirk (Shannon, MS) claiming top team roping honors for the second time in their EMCC careers, the Lions totaled 510 team points to place a distant second behind Missouri Valley College's winning total of 875 men's points. Having previously won the team roping event at last fall's UWA Rodeo Showdown, Delmas and Buskirk finished the PRCC event with a winning aggregate score of 18.6 seconds to earn 260 combined team points between them.

For the EMCC women, Ryleigh Parker (Hayesville, NC) captured the breakaway roping title and 150 team points for her winning second-round effort of 1.7 seconds to go along with her opening-round result of 2.7 seconds. She also paired with Carson Powell (Benton, AR) to advance to Saturday's championship round in team roping, though they did not score.

East Mississippi's other 100 team points were earned by barrel racer Rennie Chavis (Wagener, SC), who finished just .12 seconds behind reigning Collegiate National Finals Rodeo champion Taycie Matthews' winning time of 14.85 seconds in the second round of PRCC's event. Matthews previously earned national runner-up barrel racing honors for EMCC in 2022 before continuing her collegiate rodeo career at the University of West Alabama.

EMCC's 250 total women's points trailed only host Pearl River's winning team effort of 375 points.

The Lions featured three other point producers on the men's side this past weekend. Powell, who also advanced to Saturday's team roping finals, collected 120 points for his second-place finish in the steer wrestling event after posting runs of 5.1 and 5.2 seconds. Delmas added 50 team points for EMCC in steer wrestling.

Reigning CNFR participant Tanner Brown (Florence, MS) garnered 80 points for the Lions in PRCC's tie-down roping competition, including a 10.7-second time in the first round. EMCC teammate Roper Stoots (Louisville, MS) also made it back to Saturday's championship round in tie-down roping, though he did not score.

Head coach Morgan Goodrich's East Mississippi rodeo teams will continue their Ozark Region spring rodeo slate by competing, April 11-13, at the University of Tennessee at Martin.