LAS VEGAS – The No. 4 Carolina Cowboys had two PBR World Champions and 17 PBR World Finals qualifications in its lineup Saturday night inside T-Mobile Arena at the 2022 PBR Team Series Championship. The No. 1 Austin Gamblers had a Top-5 draft pick and riders with a combined 20 trips to the World Finals as they prepared for the Last Chance Game.
None of them, though, would be able to out ride Texas Rattlers heroes Daniel Keeping and Braidy Randolph: the two Texas Rattlers free agent signings this year who began their PBR Team Series careers with a blank resume for the most part.
Keeping and Randolph have never made it to the PBR World Finals. Nor had they ever recorded a qualified ride on the premier series.
However, as their coach Cody Lambert proudly said after his two riders helped Texas defeat Carolina and Austin in the Last Chance Game, 179-90-89.25, maybe all Keeping and Randolph needed was simply a chance to help write their soon-to-be, impressive bull riding resumes.
“It don’t get no bigger than that,” Randolph said following the team’s victory to advance to Championship Sunday for a showdown against No. 8 Nashville in the semifinals. “To have the season we had, where we have had to be junkyard dogs all year and just fight and fight and fight, we are just grateful that the fighting has been working out for us.
“We are not backing down.”
Keeping added to his growing list of accomplishments on the PBR Team Series by riding Flapjack for a career-best, 93.5 points to start off the Last Chance Game. Texas found themselves in the win or go home scenario after previously being upset by No. 5 Arizona 425.25-178.75 earlier in the night.