Sports

Casey Good and Dusdee Shepperson maintained their hold on the men's and women's all-around titles at the Big Horn Rodeo Circuit Finals held Saturday, Sept. 16 at the Lovell Rodeo Grounds.

Good, of Greybull, finished the season with 75 points, adding yet another all-around title to his collection. J.T. Collingwood finished second with 66, followed in third by Burk Pallesen with 51.

Shepperson, a Manderson native who now resides in Riverton, ran away with the women's title, scoring 96 points.  Lacee Good was second with 62, followed by Virginia Lohr with 50, Emily Palleson with 32 and Mandy McKim with 33.

Shepperson and Good were awarded saddles while their closest competitors and reserve all-arounders J.T. Collingwood and Lacee Good won breast collars.

Those point totals were accumulated over a summer and fall that featured eight regular rodeos and the circuit finals in September.

If you needed any more proof that the landscape of the 1A West has changed, the opening weekend of conference slate saw the league's top two teams from last year, Shoshoni and Rocky Mountain, go down to defeat in matchups with hungry, up-and-coming rivals.

Greybull staked its claim as one of the contenders in this new world, beating the Wranglers 16-8 on Friday night in the first game played on the new turf field.  The Buffs play No. 2-ranked Big Piney, fresh off a 58-0 thrashing of the Grizzlies, later this week. First place in the conference will be on the line.

Coach Jeremy Pouska called the win over Shoshoni "a great step for our program" and gave most of the credit to the defense, which "played aggressively and with high energy from the first whistle to the last whistle."

The Buffs scored first, thanks to a 15-yard run by Lucas Bolzer at the 9:21 mark of the second quarter.  Bolzer also ran in the two-point conversion, pushing the Greybull lead to 8-0.

Coach Dane Robertson has a deep and experienced boys squad and a smaller but talented girls squad as the Lovell High School golf team prepares for the 2023 fall season with team members from Lovell, Rocky Mountain and Greybull.

Both squads placed third at the Class 3A State Tournament last September in Buffalo, and although the Bulldogs lost four golfers to graduation, there is experience returning in the form of five golfers who competed at State, including Greybull senior Erika Cook, who captured her third consecutive state individual title last year as a junior.

Cook returns from the state team, along with Lovell senior Madison Wolvington, who placed 27^th at State. The Lady Bulldogs lost Lauren Cook of Greybull and Alex Walker of Lovell to graduation.

South Big Horn County Little League teams wrapped up the season last weekend at a tournament in Lovell. The majors and minors teams went a combined 0-7, but managers of both clubs found plenty of silver linings.

"We learned so much at this tournament," said Bridget Patterson, who coached the Big Horn Federal majors team along with Jacob Paris.  "It wasn't really reflected on the scoreboard, but it was a nice ending, seeing the way everyone came together."

Big Horn Fed went 7-3 in the regular season, knocking off every opponent it faced except the three Lovell teams.  The top players from those three teams played on North Big Horn's all-star team, which was Friday morning's opponent for South Big Horn.

It did not go well for the visitors, who lost 14-2.

"They started out strong and threw some really good pitchers at us," said Patterson.