Livestock Judging places fifth in San Antonio

The Livestock Judging team continued its strong performances with a fifth place finish at the San Antonio Livestock Show and Rodeo Collegiate Livestock Judging Contest on Feb. 23 at the San Antonio fairgrounds.


The team finished second in Sheep Judging, second in Swine Judging, fourth in Cattle Judging, fourth in Reasons and seventh in Goats Judging.


Judging Coordinator and lecturer Kris Ede said the finish was a team effort.


“Nobody had a real bad day in San Antonio,” Ede said. “Some of the individuals had really good days which helped put us over the edge.”


Graduate student Jacob Shaw, who assists in coaching the team, said the team came in eight points short of West Texas A&M University.


“It was a tough contest,” Shaw said. “But in at least one category, we beat every school that was there at least once.”


The team is not intimidated by the larger schools in the competition, Ede said.


“Our students do the exact same thing [larger schools] do; we work just as hard as they do,” Ede said. “We feel that one day soon we’re going to be as good as they are. We are better now than when we started the year off.”


Shaw said he credits the team’s success to being from a smaller school.


“You can learn a lot in a big classroom, but a smaller classroom allows you to be more hands-on,” Shaw said. “We can train the individual student better and cater more specifically to each student’s needs.”


The team will look to have another top-five finish when they compete in Houston on Monday, March 1, Shaw said.


“After a contest, we get back here and talk about it so we can realize what we did wrong, and we will go practice on that particular area,” Ede said. “We have fixed one mistake and moved on to the next one every contest.”


Shaw said the team has improved and that experience and hard work with a lot of heart and the want to win will them succeed.


“The team got a little taste of victory in San Antonio and got their name called out a bunch of times and brought home a lot of awards,” Shaw said. “I think that sparks their desire to want to go out and win.”


Individuals who placed were Sterling Yurrita, who tied for first place in the Swine Judging category, third in Reasons, ninth in Cattle and ninth overall.


Hunter Brietzke finished eighth in Sheep Judging, 11th in Swine Judging and 15th overall.


Other ASU team members competing include William Meyer, Shaylyn Parker, Darren Seidel and Caitlyn Van Slambrouck.