Sophomore Rachell Shobe competes in the reining discipline for the Cowgirls. They won fourth place at Nationals last weekend.
The Cowgirl equestrian team traveled to Nationals over the weekend and earned fourth place overall.
Yet despite competing against the best teams in the country and placing the highest of any OSU team this year, the Cowgirls were disappointed with the finish, as both the western and hunt seat teams finished fourth.
“Our goal was to go in and win it, not to do less than that,” coach Larry Sanchez said. “However, I think that our team represented Oklahoma State in the positive manner that we would like. They rode well; their efforts both in and out of the arena are to be commended.”
Associate head coach Suzanne Flaig said OSU had hoped to take first in both disciplines and win Nationals, but she said not reaching that mark doesn’t change that the Cowgirls did well.
“A fourth-place finish with this caliber of teams at this event is a very good result,” Flaig said. “It was a little short of our goals. In that respect, it is a little bit of a disappointment, but it just gives us more to work for next year.”
The hunt seat team lost in the third-place match to Georgia, 6-2, on Saturday.
“Georgia rode very well that day after losing the previous day to Texas A&M,” Flaig said. “[Georgia] had made some mistakes then and was not offering up any of those against us.”
After a bye, the team had beaten Fresno State, 6-2, before losing 6-2 to Auburn, who would go on to win the hunt seat competition.
The western team lost in the third-place match against Kansas State, 6-1. The team started the tournament with a bye, then came back to beat South Carolina after falling behind 3-1.
The Cowgirls won three of the last four matches against USC to force a tie and won the tiebreaker with a higher cumulative raw score. Sanchez said he was proud of the Cowgirls making the comeback.
“We had a long talk about what we had in front of us and what we had to do in order to stay in it,” he said. “The girls that were competing that morning got together and decided what they needed to do. It was amazing.”
The western team then dropped a 6-2 match to Georgia before losing to K-State.
“We didn’t ride flawlessly,” Sanchez said. “We had some mistakes in that round, and you can’t afford to make mistakes like that in this competition. You really can’t afford to make any mistakes at the level everybody was riding at.”
Sophomore Leah Kuehn took second place in the reining individual championship.
“I couldn’t have been happier with Leah’s performance,” Sanchez said. “The championship round between her and the winner was very close. It could have went either way, and no argument would have been made at all.”
Ally Blais and Bailey Mahoney also competed in the individual championships for the Cowgirls, though neither advanced.
“In especially Ally’s case, it was a tiebreak situation, which is what prevented her from moving on,” Flaig said. “It was very close, a little bit of a heartbreak.”
Sanchez said he was impressed at the level of competition from all the teams at Nationals, and Flaig said the team was able to overcome its initial disappointment at not placing higher.
“The emotion kind of comes full circle,” Flaig said. “There’s initial disappointment, then comes acceptance, and then you start to look ahead.”
When looking ahead, the coaches said they feel optimistic because the Cowgirls are young. The western team only has one senior and two juniors, and the hunt seat team also has many returning riders.
“We’re a very young team, and to be able to put in that type of effort at the National Championships with a very young and collegiately inexperienced team is very exciting for the future,” Sanchez said. “We have a great recruiting class in both disciplines, so it’s only going to continue to get better.”
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