Kal Fuller

Kal Fuller continued his assault on the all-around standings with a 6.02-second run in team roping (with header Caden Camp) on Thursday morning in the eighth performance of the National Junior High Finals Rodeo at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

The run pushed the Montana cowboys to first in the round in team roping and third in the average standings, while cementing Kal’s spot atop the all-around cowboy standings. Competing in five events – and sitting in contention to make the short round in at least four of them – Kal will be hard to beat if he continues to rope the way he has through the first four days of competition.

“I’ve been practicing all of my events every day to get ready for this,” he said moments after his team roping run on Thursday morning. After slipping a leg and taking a five-second penalty in round one, there was no way he was roping anything other than two feet today. “I’m paying a little attention to the all-around, but I just have to go make my runs in each event.”

Whether he’d looked at the all-around standings or not, he’d have to be the world’s worst mathematician to not realize he’s leading the coveted standings. He’s also sitting first in the average in chute dogging at 5.21 seconds for two runs, and turned in the fast time of the week (4.81 seconds) with Opal Harkins in the first round of ribbon roping. The pair won’t make their second-round run in that event until Saturday morning.

“We were up in that first performance, so we didn’t know anything about the calf,” he said. “We just had to be aggressive and make our own run.” Kal added that it marked the third time in his career he’s been in the four-second range in ribbon roping.

Kal’s up Thursday night in tie-down roping after a 12.01-second run in the first round. Another solid run will put him in contention to qualify into the short round in that event, as well. After taking the Friday morning perf off – just the second time all week he hasn’t competed – he’ll make his second-round run in boys goat tying on Friday night. He was a little long in the first round, at 14.74 seconds, but that’s about all he has to complain about this week.

The team roping run pushed Kal’s point total to 890 for the week as of Thursday morning, and gave him a 355-point lead on Blake Chauvin of Louisiana.

“We watched the film on the steer and it looked like if you got up on him he’d keep to the left a little, so I knew to stay off of him a little,” Kal said of the run. “I had faith my header would turn him.”