Teagan Bentley and Bryton Scheller came from third high call to win the 2024 Mountain States Circuit Finals Oct. 25-26, with a 16.3 on three head.
Bentley and Scheller pocketed $7,575 apiece between the rounds and the average in Loveland, Colorado, finishing out a tough year for both ropers with a taste of redemption. For 20-year-old Bentley, the win is a pleasant ending to his rookie year.
“I didn’t have the rookie year I wanted to, so it was special to come back and finish out the year on a strong note, rolling into the winter,” Bentley, of Casper, Wyoming, said. “Now we have a little momentum rolling our way.”
For Scheller, the win isn’t just a career highlight, it was also a personal triumph for a kid who never thought he’d rope again. In the early fall of 2023, Scheller was leaving a roping when he was hit head on by a vehicle that had blown a tire. Scheller suffered a broken pelvis, a traumatic brain injury, a tear in his stomach and other injuries as a result. Scheller went at physical therapy with a multitude of determination and focus in hopes of roping again.
“It means the world to me,” Scheller, 23, said. “With my wreck last year and everything, I didn’t even know if I was going to be able to rope again. It’s pretty special.”
Loveland play-by-play
Bentley and Scheller didn’t start 2024 as partners. When the end of the season approached, Scheller was on the circuit finals bubble and needed a partner for the last three rodeos. He called Bentley, whom he’s known forever, but things didn’t go their way and Scheller didn’t make the cut.
Bentley was prepared to rope with JC Flake, who finished 17th in the heeling world standings, in Loveland. But the day entries close, Bentley learned Flake couldn’t make it, so he called Scheller.
The third team out in Round 1 Oct. 25, Bentley and Scheller split third in the round with a 6.2 for $842 a man.
“The first one, we just went and caught him just to get our week started off without any penalties,” Bentley said. “We got to see what we needed to do after that, and it ended up being kind of a light round.”
They drew a good steer in the second round and used him, winning third in the round again, this time with a 5.2-second run for $1,122 each. They entered the third round Oct. 26, third in the average, and while they didn’t think they could beat the high call team, they focused on making the best run they could to give them a chance.
“We were just trying to ride it out,” Scheller, an Ault, Colorado, native, said. “Winning the average was our only goal. We knew [our steer] was pretty good. We weren’t trying to be 4.9 for sure, but it just worked out in our favor.”
Bentley and Scheller won the round with a 4.9 for $2,244 a man and solidified the average win for $3,367 apiece.
“I think neither one of us had anything to lose, and we didn’t really have any pressure,” Bentley said. “We knew Garrett (Tonozzi) and Conner (Herren) had so much won on everybody that there was no way we could catch them, so there were honestly 11 guys going for the average. We all just knew that we were going to have to win the average, so there wasn’t a whole lot of pressure on us; we would either win it or we wouldn’t, but we ended up doing good.”
Bentley and Scheller’s horsepower
Bentley rode a grade gelding he calls Cisco that he traded for a few years prior. That trade turned into Bentley’s No. 1 mount.
“He’s just the old reliable,” Bentley said. “If I have money on the line, that’s the one I get on. He’s solid every time—nothing changes. I know what he’s going to do, and he lets me go fast if I need to go fast. He never takes my throw away, and he scores really easy; he’s just easy to get along with.”
The team had some star power on the heel side. Scheller rode a gelding called Cruiser that he bought from 13-time NFR heeler Brady Minor earlier this year.
“I could never get rid of him,” Scheller said. “I could take him to the circuit finals, or my little brother could get on him and head on him. My little cousin can get on him and go run barrels even. I’m very lucky to get to own him.”
Colorado in July
Bentley and Scheller aren’t partnered up in 2025, but they’ll team back up to represent the home turf at the NFR Open in July.
“It being in the middle of July is kind of the busiest time of the year, so it’s nice to be able to go over there and rope for that much money against a lot less teams than you normally have to rope against,” Bentley said with a laugh. “It’s a nice little incentive to be able to go over there and not have to rope against 115 of the best guys in the world.”
