Four young ladies with matching dresses and suit jackets commanded the day at the International Post-Secondary Judging Contest on Monday, October 1. The SUNY Cobleskill team utilized a strong day of placings to top second place Michigan State Ag Tech by 21 points. Along the way, they earned back-to-back team championships for their fourth-year coach Carrie Edsall.

In addition to defending their team championship from last year, an individual from the school was able to lock down the overall individual title for a second year. It was SUNY Cobleskill student Lydia Williams that separated herself from the competition averaging 47 points on the day and finishing with 799 points out of a possible 850.

Impressively, she did so without winning a breed division. On the day, Williams was able to achieve 6 perfect scores on 12 classes. Additionally, she averaged a respectable 45 in the reasons room.

Her teammates followed suit with the group as a whole placing cows really well. Shannon Sears was 12th overall, Rachel Hall placed 13th, and Toni Jaque was 17th.

The day didn’t belong to SUNY Cobleskill alone, though. Illinois’ Kaskaskia College topped the reasons portion of the contest with an average reasons score of 44.2 points, led by Cady McGehee who won the individual reasons title with an average reasons score of 45.8. With their strong day in the reasons room, they earned a fifth place team finish.

Placing fourth overall was Northeast Iowa Community College, and third was California’s Modesto Junior College.

For the individual overall title, Modesto Junior College’s Adriana Toste placed second, and Northeast Iowa Community College’s Jacob Hornberg was third. Toste’s teammate Donavan Miguel earned a fourth place finish, and Kaskaskia College’s Patrick Tegeler rounded out the top five.

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The author is an associate editor. She covers feeding and nutrition, youth activities, and heads up the World Dairy Expo Supplement. Maggie was raised on a 150-cow dairy near Valley Center, Kansas, and graduated from Kansas State University with degrees in agricultural communications and animal sciences.