As she and her horse took to a drier — and faster — arena floor for the first performance of the second go-round, Suazo blazed through a virtually flawless run, posting a time of 19.818 seconds to capture her second performance win of the day, and more importantly, giving her the early lead in the average to all but assure herself of a spot in Saturday's championship round — an achievement that has eluded her in the past.
"That's probably the second-fastest time I've had," she said. "Hopefully, it will work for a title — I don't know. I didn't make the short go in my past four years, so it feels good to finally make it this year."
Suazo's time was the second-fastest of the competition so far, behind Kansas athlete Emily Miller's
"We're all real close friends and wish each other the best," Suazo said. "We're good in everything, but it's happened to work out just right in the poles so far. Hoepfully, it will work out that way in everything else, too, and for the guys."
The Arkansas team roping tandem of Codee Reynolds and Cody Roberts also repeated their success from earlier in the day — almost perfectly. Their winning time in the morning was 7.702 seconds, and they followed it up with a nearly identical 7.706 to capture the evening competition as well.
"We had to wait that steer out, because he was kind of slow in the corner," said Roberts, who somehow was able to detect the four one-thousandths of a second difference between the two runs. "I just took my time and got him caught. We've kind of had a rough past couple weeks, but this is our time."
Reynolds and Roberts just edged New Mexico's Gralyn Elkins and Ethan Shelley for the evening victory, with Arizona's Troy Nahrgang and Cullen Teller also nipping at their heels. Needing just one more solid run to set themselves up for Saturday night's short go, Reynolds and Roberts didn't disappoint.
"We finally got a steer that was a little bit slower," said Reynolds, sporting a torn shirt sleeve for his efforts. "He tried a lot harder than we thought he was going to, but it worked out."
Other athletes backing up their earlier efforts included goat tyer Jordan Thurston of Wyoming, who shaved nearly six tenths off her morning time to clock in at 8.218 seconds. Utah's Jesse Wright recorded a 75 to pick up his second saddle bronc win of the day, while Zane Caddell of Texas picked up another bareback victory. Will Hetzel of Louisiana also was a repeat victor, taking his second win of the day in boys cutting at Memorial Coliseum.
South Dakota's Taryn Sippel took the breakaway roping win with a time of 2.93 seconds Wednesday night, while Kellie Wiersma of Washington won the barrel racing and California's Hollie Kucera was the evening's top calf cutter.
Travis Rogers of Oklahoma triumphed in tie down roping at 8.897 seconds, and Missouri's Colter Hill was the night's top steer wrestler. Brett Stall of Minnesota took top honors in bull riding.
The second go-round continues through each of the next two days and concludes with Saturday morning's performance, after which the top 20 competitors in each event will qualify for that evening's championship round.
Darren Vaughan: dvaughan@daily-times.com
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