ATHLETE OF THE WEEK: Garret Heer

Plattevilles Garret Heer attempts to lasso a calf during the tie-down roping competition at the 59th annual Wisconsin High School Rodeo State Finals two weekends ago.

12A Heer — Plattevilles Garret Heer attempts to lasso a calf during the tie-down roping competition at the 59th annual Wisconsin High School Rodeo State Finals two weekends ago.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Swnews4u.com Athlete of the Week is a web-only feature that will publish each Thursday throughout the calendar year.

Garret Heer, Platteville, rodeo

RICHLAND CENTER — Recent Platteville High School graduate Garret Heer earned won the tie-down roping competition and finished second in team roping at the 59th annual Wisconsin High School Rodeo State Finals here at the Richland County Fairgrounds two weekends ago.

Heer won the tie-down roping contest with a two-round total of 30.05 seconds, then teamed with Mondovi’s Nicholas Pelke to finish second in the team roping competition.

As a result, Heer finished second in the season-long points standings to qualify for the upcoming National High School Rodeo Finals in roping events.

Nearly 60 cowboys and cowgirls participated during the annual three-day state finals that not only confirms state champions, but also the members of the Wisconsin team that will participate in the Nationals at Rock Springs, Wyo. July 15–21. The top four finishers in each event qualified for nationals.

Heer was also the winner of the Skip Lemanski Memorial Scholarship, the NHSRA Merit Scholarship and was the Knapp Memorial Sportsmanship Award recipient.

Heer will attend Loras College in Dubuque in the fall and play baseball for the Duhawks next spring.

HONORABLE MENTION (in alphabetical order):

Abby Kaiser, Potosi, volleyball

Kaiser pounded a match-high 19 kills to lead the West over the East, 25–7, 25–18, 28–26, 25–19, 23–25, in the five-set Six Rivers Conference Senior Volleyball All-Star Match at Highland last Friday night. The West now leads the all-time series 2–1. Kasier was named first-team All-SRW for a third straight year last fall after leading the Chieftains to an 18–9 record and a third-place 8–4 finish in the West.

Zach White, Cade Rohrbach, Ethan Suits and Isaiah Altfillisch, Platteville, boys golf

The Platteville foursome was recently named to the Golf Coaches of Wisconsin Academic All-State team. Each of the Platteville golfers had a GPA above 3.25 and played in 75 percent of the varsity matches. Platteville won the Southwest Wisconsin Conference title, the SWC conference meet, the WIAA Division 2 Prairie du Chien regional, the Viroqua Invitational and the New Glarus Invitational and finished second at the House on the Rock Invitational.