Central Wyoming College Volleyball
Another weekend of Region IX conference play for the CWC Volleyball team saw the Lady Rustlers take a short two-hour bus ride east to Casper College this past Friday night. This was the second meeting between these two teams, the first of which occurred on September 27 at Rustler Gym, and had a very similar result to Friday’s game.
Casper kept Friday’s match close, not going down with an easy fight and taking the match to four sets, with each set decided by four points or less until the fourth and final set (25-17). Casper had no answer for sophomores Ryann Vail or Khloe Hobson, as both combined for 22 total kills in the match. Rian McKenzie continued her role as the oil in Central Wyoming’s powerful offensive engine, racking up 37 of the team’s 41 assists. The Lady Rustler’s win against Casper College put their conference record at 4-3 and lifted them to fourth place in the Region IX North conference standings.
Another familiar opponent in Western Wyoming was Saturday afternoon’s matchup, but this time the Mustangs had home court advantage. A strong first set from Central Wyoming seemingly set the tone for the rest of the match. The Lady Rustlers were flying around everywhere and easily put away Western Wyoming, 25-15. But with the commencement of the second set, the script flipped in the blink of an eye. The Mustangs had previously been made light work of by CWC in three sets during their September 28 matchup. Motivated to not let this happen again, Western Wyoming reached deep down and simply refused to lose the match.
It didn’t help either that Central Wyoming’s offense disappeared in the subsequent three sets, getting outscored 75-51. The statistics were spread pretty evenly across the board, but the Lady Rustlers didn’t have a single-player record for double-digit kills, which is only the third time this has occurred all season. CWC Volleyball takes a .500 conference record into their last two home games this week against Laramie County Community College on Friday and Eastern Wyoming College on Saturday.
Men’s Soccer
The first round of the men’s soccer NJCAA Region IX tournament took place this past Saturday afternoon. The CWC Rustler players and coaches made the trek South to Colorado State University’s field in Pueblo, Colorado to take on Otero College. The neutral field played to Central Wyoming’s advantage, CWC fans had traveled well and made their presence known. Unfortunately, the Rustlers struggled to fill the stat sheet as well as their fans filled the stadium.
Otero attacked the Central Wyoming defensive line early and often, and the Rattlers’ first goal came from an unlucky incident. Center-back Shayden Scott tackled their striker and in the process, ricocheted the ball into CWC’s net. Not much more than five minutes later into the match, the Rustler’s starting goalkeeper, Morgan Kendall, was removed from the pitch with an injury after a chaotic scramble for the ball in the penalty box. Stanley Schumann stepped up and replaced Kendall, and did a magnificent job for the remaining 80 minutes of the game.
Injuries plagued Central Wyoming over the course of the match, occurring once again at the 22-minute mark of the first half. This time it was Camilo Correa who was struck down with an injury and freshman Ryan Hill was sent in as his replacement. The injury bug struck again near the end of the first half when Josh Jackson was in a scramble for the ball and collided with an Otero player. CWC had key contributions from Eduardo Bicca and Oscar Hernandez, who both handled the defensive duties for the second half of the match. Overwhelmed by setbacks, the CWC men’s soccer team fought hard but found themselves returning home with a 0-3 loss. The loss marks the end of the 2024 fall season for the men’s soccer team, who finished with a 3-6-3 overall record.
Men’s & Women’s Golf
The conclusion of the Yellowjacket Invitational in Billings, Montana marked the end of the 2024 fall golf season. Tyler Ewell shot even par across three rounds of 18 holes, which was good enough to earn him a fifth place amongst the 40 other men’s competitors. Isabell Salas led the way for the Lady Rustlers, finishing 18 strokes over par across two rounds of 18 holes, which secured her a 17th-place finish out of 51 golfers on the women’s side.
Despite 10 out of his 11 golfers being freshmen, Head CWC Golf Coach Mike Neuman was proud of how well his men’s and women’s teams performed and is excited to continue to strengthen each athlete’s skills for the upcoming spring season, “We gained some valuable experience that we will take into the off-season and build on. Individually we had some high-level play from Tyler Ewell, who picked up a [tournament] win and Isabell Salas displayed some dominance and picked up two [tournament] wins in the fall season.”
NJCAA division 1 rankings came out this week for the first time all season and both the Central Wyoming College men’s and women’s teams are ranked #22 in the country. A great recognition for a season’s worth of hard work and dedication. The men’s and women’s golf Region IX playoffs will occur at the end of April 2025.
Rodeo 
CWC’s Rodeo team wrapped up their fall 2024 season with a trip to Lamar Community College this past week, and although Head Coach Andrew Schrock felt like his team didn’t have the best rodeo they could have, he’s proud of the success and accomplishments his team has built this season and is eager to continue their season in the spring, “I am really pleased with the way this team has handled their successes and more importantly the way they handled their adversities.”
Eain Smith and Colton Clymer were the silver lining in an otherwise underwhelming final fall rodeo competition for Central Wyoming. Smith finished his season strong by securing himself a fourth-place finish in bareback riding, while Clymer also wrapped up his Bull Riding season on a strong note by taking third place overall.
“I’m confident that they have learned from both [their] wins and loses and will be ready to work on those details after a short break,” Schrock stated, “We plan on taking a couple of weeks off to get caught up in classes before practice fires up for the remainder of the fall semester.”
On the schedule this week:
- Volleyball
- Friday, Oct. 25– HOME vs LCCC @ 6pm
- Saturday, Oct. 26– HOME vs Eastern Wyoming College @ 2pm
- Cross Country
- Saturday, Oct. 26–Regionals
