3 Division A teams qualify for PBR Team Challenge playoffs
Team Cooper Tires, Team Las Vegas and Team Can-Am advanced to the playoff round of the Professional Bull Riders Monster Energy Team Challenge after Sunday’s competition at South Point Arena.
The playoffs will be July 10 to 12 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and the top three teams from each division qualify based on win-loss records. Those teams qualified from Division A, and the Division B competition begins Friday at South Point.
Team Wrangler (2-4), Team Union Home Mortgage (2-4) and Team YETI (1-5) failed to qualify out of Division A.
Team Can-Am (3-3) became the final entrant Sunday when Brazilian Mauricio Moreira received a score of 85.5 points after riding the bull Skitso. That gave his team a 173.5-172.75 victory over Team Union Home Mortgage.
Team Cooper Tires (6-0) continued its dominance, outscoring the other teams over the first two weekends by a combined 1,535.25-430.25, and will receive a bye in the first round of the playoffs. The team completed rides on 18 of 36 bulls, the best in the tournament. World No. 1 Jose Vitor Leme of Brazil is the individual points leader with 779.5 points.
Team Las Vegas (4-2) finished second in the standings despite losing to Team Cooper Tires twice in the past three days, including getting shut out 259-0 on Sunday.
The first-year event is a 12-team, 48-rider weekly competition, with the round robin taking place at South Point without fans because of the coronavirus pandemic. The playoffs will be in front of limited crowds.
Contact reporter Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @markanderson65 on Twitter.
