The 19-year-old rookie phenom Ketch Kelton is clipping along at a veteran pace through 10 head at the Cinch Timed Event Championship, leading the event by 29 seconds after Round 2.
Kelton was 11.2 on his heading steer, 22.3 in the tie-down, 11.0 in the heeling, 8.5 in the steer wrestling and 19.5 in the steer roping—the fastest busting time of the round.
“Ketch Kelton and Denton Dunning were grinding it out from an early age, eaten up with roping. It’s clear they’ve got so many more hours in the arena than most kids their age, and they’re seeing the results. Other kids can catch up, but it will take a while, and a whole lot of reps.”
—Seven-time CTEC Champ Trevor Brazile
“This was a crazy round,” Kelton, from Mayer, Arizona, said. “The steers are taking most of the guys out, which kind of sucks, but hopefully I don’t draw one like that. But I don’t want to focus on the ones I don’t want. My dad tells me to just try to make no mistakes and get by with whatever I get.”
Kelton’s battling it out with the 2005 and 2011 Cinch Timed Event Champion Kyle Lockett, who competed with Kelton’s dad, Chance, a 12-time CTEC contestant.
“Kyle, my dad, Trevor (Brazile)—all of them, really, that have done good at this event,” Kelton said. “It’s kind of cool to be able to go against a guy that’s won it multiple times like Lockett, and then actually be ahead of him going into it. That’s the funnest part to me. I’ve never competed in something like this against all these guys. It makes it cool to try to beat them.”
This year, the bottom five contestants are sent home after Round 2, with Stetson Jorgensen, Tyler Pearson, JoJo LeMond, Clayton Hass and Clay Smith out before Round 3 starts at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 28.
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Round 2 CTEC results
| Contestant Name | Round 2 | Payout | |
| 1 | Ketch Kelton | 72.5 | $3,000 |
| 2 | Kyle Lockett | 75.8 | $2,000 |
| 3 | Seth Hall | 84.6 | $1,000 |
| 4 | Brushton Minton | 88.1 | |
| 5 | Colby Lovell | 89.0 | |
| 6 | Dylan Hancock | 92.6 | |
| 7 | Nelson Wyatt | 99.4 | |
| 8 | Kolton Schmidt | 104.9 | |
| 9 | K.C. Jones | 109.1 | |
| 10 | Erich Rogers | 115.6 | |
| 11 | Riley Wakefield | 115.9 | |
| 12 | Paul D. Tierney | 116.7 | |
| 13 | Jess Tierney | 123.0 | |
| 14 | Russell Cardoza | 130.0 | |
| 15 | Tyler Pearson | 132.9 | |
| 16 | Billy Good | 135.1 | |
| 17 | Marcus Theriot | 137.3 | |
| 18 | Clay Smith | 139.8 | |
| 19 | Thomas Smith | 147.5 | |
| 20 | Jojo Lemond | 150.3 | |
| 21 | John Douch | 152.5 | |
| 22 | Cody Doescher | 161.0 | |
| 23 | Blane Cox | 171.2 | |
| 24 | Stetson Jorgensen | 199.6 | |
| 25 | Clayton Hass | 200.6 |
CTEC Aggregate after Round 2
| Contestant Name | Average After Round 2 |
| Ketch Kelton | 122.5 |
| Kyle Lockett | 151.5 |
| Dylan Hancock | 170.0 |
| Brushton Minton | 175.4 |
| Colby Lovell | 175.8 |
| Nelson Wyatt | 180.2 |
| K.C. Jones | 184.7 |
| Seth Hall | 186.1 |
| Paul D. Tierney | 190.9 |
| Cody Doescher | 214.1 |
| Kolton Schmidt | 214.8 |
| Riley Wakefield | 215.9 |
| Billy Good | 223.6 |
| Erich Rogers | 225.9 |
| Jess Tierney | 243.8 |
| Russell Cardoza | 248.2 |
| John Douch | 251.7 |
| Blane Cox | 255.2 |
| Marcus Theriot | 256.0 |
| Thomas Smith | 260.3 |
| NOT ADVANCING TO ROUND 3 | |
| Stetson Jorgensen | 267.9 |
| Tyler Pearson | 275.2 |
| Jojo Lemond | 286.6 |
| Clayton Hass | 291.3 |
| Clay Smith | 291.9 |
