EMCC’s Tanner Brown finishes fourth nationally in team roping at College National Finals Rodeo

CASPER, Wyo. — East Mississippi Community College team roper Tanner Brown paired with Laine Moore of Northwest Mississippi to win Saturday night's short round in 5.2 seconds and earn a fourth-place national finish at this past week's College National Finals Rodeo held at the Ford Wyoming Center in Casper.

Brown and Moore earned one of 12 spots in Saturday's team roping finals by ranking as one of only 18 duos out of 52 entered pairings to post scores during more than one of the week's three qualifying rounds. The tandem bounced back from Monday's no-score result by tying for eighth place with a 7.7-second effort in Tuesday's second round and then locking down their spot in the championship round with a 16th-place finish in 12.6 seconds during Friday's third-round performance. After qualifying 11^th for Saturday night's championship round, they completed the week-long competition with an aggregate score of 25.5 seconds.

Brown, out of Florence, Miss., and Moore, an Albertville, Ala. native, earned 120 team points apiece for the Lions and Rangers, respectively, during this year's CNFR action. EMCC finished in a three-way tie for 29^th place nationally with South Plains (TX) College and Utah State University in the final men's team standings out of the 54 four-year universities and two-year junior colleges that registered team points in men's competition during the week.

As the only team roping tandem to earn scores during all four CNFR runs this past week, the duo comprised of Hill College's James Arviso and Kaden Profili from Texas A&M-Commerce claimed this year's collegiate team roping championship with an aggregate score of 31.6 seconds to earn 230 points each for their respective schools. They capped the week by finishing just behind Brown and Moore with a second-place time of 5.4 seconds during Saturday's finals.

Competing in his third CNFR for the Lions, Brown earned EMCC's highest CNFR team roping finish since Ethan Wheeler teamed with UT Martin's Ross Mitchell to claim reserve champion (second place) national honors in 2017.

Brown and Moore qualified for this year's CNFR by finishing third in the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association's (NIRA) 2023-24 Ozark Region standings within their respective heeler and header categories. They totaled 620 points apiece during this year's 10-event regular season. After opening the season with a first-place finish at the Missouri Valley College-hosted rodeo last September, the tandem successfully teamed together to close out the Ozark Region's spring slate with a runner-up showing at the NWCC-hosted rodeo held during the final weekend of April in Senatobia.

With Brown's fourth-place national team roping finish as the Lions' lone competitor at this year's College National Finals Rodeo, East Mississippi Community College extended its continuous streak of having student-athletes qualify for the CNFR to 14 consecutive years since the inception of EMCC's rodeo program in 2010 under the guidance of head coach Morgan Goodrich.

For rodeo fans interested in re-watching any of the performance rounds of this year's College National Finals Rodeo, replays are slated to be available for the next month on demand in the ESPN app. In addition, Saturday's championship-round performance by Brown and Moore is scheduled to be replayed on August 20 at 7 p.m. CT on ESPNU.