Jan. 28, 2006

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina western team fell short of a fifth-place finish Saturday as they lost to Oklahoma State 717.5-693 at the Big 8 Western Tournament in College Station, Texas. USC’s Rachel Sternoff was the only rider to pick up a win as she defeated Brianne Wiebe in horsemanship.

“This was a good warm-up for us as we head into the bulk of our schedule next month,” said head coach Boo Duncan. “I thought we rode very well. Our reining event came down to making, very correctable, mistakes. Unfortunately, it was still enough to knock us out of contention.”

Sternoff defeated Wiebe 143-141 and recorded her second win of the weekend, after claiming a reining victory against Baylor earlier in the tournament.

“Rachel did a nice job in horsemanship. She also put in a very nice round with a very difficult horse in reining, unfortunately, she was not able to get as high of scores as we would have liked,” said Duncan.

Rounding out the horsemanship event, Allison Bradley was edged by Samantha Davidson 145.5-144.5, while Katy Biffle lost 144.5-137.5 to Brandi Thomas. In the reining competition, Biffle lost 132-131 to Jacque Roberts, and OSU’s Wiebe defeated Laura Pipkin 144.5-126.5. Katie Bohr defeated Sternoff 142-137 to grab the fifth-place finish.

The Gamecocks return home next weekend when they host South Dakota State on Feb. 4 at OneWood Farm in Blythewood.