LAS VEGAS – Eduardo Aparecido looked into his hands with a mixture of sadness and pure laughter inside the Arizona Ridge Riders locker room on Saturday night at the PBR Team Series Championship.

Aparecido was holding the remnants of his belt buckle from winning the 2015 Monster Energy Buck Off at the Garden 15/15 Bucking Battle in New York City in his hands.

The 32-year-old had been jumping up and down so much on the back of the bucking chutes during Keyshawn Whitehorse’s game-winning ride of 90 points on Cold Creek that he somehow had snapped his buckle off his belt.

Arizona technical coach Colby Yates looked at Aparecido in the locker room with a solution.

“Well, we are just going to have to go win you a new one tomorrow,” Yates said with a grin. “How does that sound?”

Aparecido then nodded his head confidently and responded, “Yes sir.”

The 11-time PBR World Finals qualifier teamed up with Whitehorse, Alisson de Souza (70.25 points on Crossover), Vitor Losnake (89.25 points on Mike’s Effect) and Luciano de Castro (87 points on War Dress) to help Arizona become the second team in league history to ride all five of its bulls in a single game.

The perfect game came at just the right time as Arizona defeated No. 2 Texas 425.25-178.75 to advance to the PBR Team Series Championship Semifinals on Sunday afternoon at T-Mobile Arena. The Ridge Riders will take on No. 3 Oklahoma (4 p.m. ET CBS Sports Network).

“We’re super excited, for sure. We know God is with us,” Aparecido said with the help of a translator. “We’re all the time with him, and he’s not going to leave us at this moment. We’re looking forward to tomorrow and for sure I need a new buckle, so looking forward to that.”

Texas, coincidentally, was the only other team to go a perfect 5-for-5 in a game (Oct. 14 vs. Carolina | 5-for-5 431 points).

“Dude, I can’t explain it,” Yates said. “My adrenaline’s been going all day, especially when I walked in this building. I was just nervous because Texas is a very tough team. We’ve had some hard games against them, and we lost a lot of games against them. I think we were 1-3 against them. So, this is a big moment for us as a team because we’ve been defeated by them so much.”

The team still hadn’t forgotten about Texas coach Cody Lambert playfully taunting their home crowd in Glendale, Arizona, last month when he tipped his cowboy hat toward them after using a challenge to take away a qualified ride from Whitehorse, leading to a slew of boos at Desert Diamond Arena.

“It was fan-freaking-tastic. Last time we met them, I was pretty pissed,” Whitehorse said. “That was when they pressed the button on me and took away my qualified ride in Glendale. So, I was glad to get that win, and we did it full-throttle.

We are definitely looking forward to tomorrow, and we’re going in not over our head or under. We’re going there with an even-keeled mindset, ready to dominate. We’re running on all cylinders right now.”

The two teams could also meet in the Championship Game on Sunday as well. Texas takes on No. 8 Nashville in the other Semifinal Game.

The Ridge Riders locker room was an absolute raucous scene Saturday night after Luciano de Castro clinched the perfect game with his ride on War Dress.

Arizona busted out of a streak of posting only one ride in three of its previous four games.

Yates said Arizona getting an emotional lift of being perfect against Texas will help on Championship Sunday.

“That’s the thing we had talked about before,” Yates said. “Getting this bond back that you see right here, right now, this is special. That bond has been shattered and shook loose sometimes, and we’ve had to learn how to deal with that and be able to figure out how to get back together. And man, I’m proud of this team. You saw it. You saw what they did. This is what they’re capable of every single time they nod their head. I feel like we had a great bull pen and we matched them up perfectly, but they did their job. I mean, these bulls bucked. They were no day off. I just can’t explain it, man. This is great.”

Castro’s effort was something inspiring to his teammates as well, Yates added.

The No. 6 overall pick in the inaugural PBR Team Series Draft had been sick and vomiting since late Friday night when he came down with food poisoning because of a chef salad he ate following Round 1. In fact, Castro did not even stop throwing up until after he arrived at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night.

“That’s how resilient these guys are, and that’s how much this means to them,” Yates said. “They want to win so bad. For a guy like Luciano to – he’s got a stomach bug or food poisoning or whatever, ate something bad last night, and to feel bad and be able to rise above, that’s what it’s all about. It’s not about himself, so he takes that and puts it aside and sacrifices his well-being for the betterment of the team.”

Castro said it wasn’t easy, but he knew how important it was for his team to not only get the victory over Texas, but to finally put together a 5-for-5 performance.

Now the 26-year-old will have roughly 12 hours to recover before Championship Sunday.

“It was definitely a tough day for me,” Castro concluded. “I wasn’t feeling well. It was a hard day. All I kept thinking all the time was I had to recover and feel better. I took some medicine. I got some support from my friends, and I was feeling a bit better before riding. I knew it was an important ride. We were against a super strong team, so we had to do well. I was still feeling my stomach a bit upset, but we made it. I went there, and I focused, and we did it. It’s the first time we make it (perfect), the five of us, so we’re so happy.

“It’s amazing.”