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Bertagnole, defensive line ready for second-half push for Wyoming

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Bertagnole, defensive line ready for second-half push for Wyoming


LARAMIE — As a captain and one of the true leaders of the Wyoming defense, defensive tackle Jordan Bertagnole will be the first to tell you his unit’s play has not been up to par through the first five games.

That admitted, Bertagnole will also warn you to prepare for a quick turnaround. The senior leader and Casper native was pleased with the defense’s performance against Air Force and sees only more success on the horizon.

Next on the docket for the Cowboys is a Mountain West home game against San Diego State on Saturday.

“I feel like we’ve definitely gotten better. We didn’t start out how we wanted to in the non-conference play,” Bertagnole said. “We really didn’t live up to our standard and our expectations. I feel like going into this game and building off Air Force, is something we’re looking forward to.”

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Wyoming defensive tackle Jordan Bertagnole trips up Air Force quarterback John Busha in the second half of the Cowboys’ 31-19 victory over the Falcons on Sept. 28 at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie.

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Andrew Towne



Against three Big 12 foes and a strong FCS squad in Idaho, Wyoming’s defense was found wanting. Through those four games, UW ranked among 115th in the nation in total defense, allowing 429 yards per game.

The Pokes rebounded in their return home against Air Force and its triple option. UW limited the Falcons to 320 total yards. That number may have been 70 yards better had Bertagnole not been flagged for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, which erased a punting situation and enabled the Falcons to continue their drive with a fresh set of downs.

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A large part of the Pokes’ defensive success against the Falcons was owed to the players in the interior of the defensive line, a group that includes Bertagnole, Ben Florentine, Dante Drake and Jaden Williams. Those four combined for 13 tackles, one tackle for loss and a half sack. Bertagnole himself finished with five tackles and the half sack. The interior players did an excellent job of maintaining their gaps and pursuing the football. Those two areas were lacking in the four losses in the non-conference slate and Bertagnole said it is a point of emphasis at practice.

“Ball key is an emphasis every single day at practice because obviously we don’t want to give (opponents) cheap stuff that’s just us being undisciplined,” he said. “So focusing on that, but then running to the ball is huge. If you have everybody running to the ball, guys are going to miss tackles during a play every now and then, and if you have guys running to the ball, then somebody doesn’t break a tackle and get an extra 20 yards. … Effort and energy is a big emphasis with the d-line.”

Looking at the Pro Football Focus grades through five games, the numbers tell a story of necessary improvement.

Bertagnole, coming off a second-team All-Conference award, has earned a 70.4 run grade, but just a 52.6 pass rush grade on a scale of 0 to 100. Florentine, the Pokes’ other starter inside, currently has a 63.7 grade against the run and 51.0 grade in pass rush while Drake has earned a 59.4 run grade and 54.5 pass rush grade. Jayden Williams has been graded out the best, but has just 83 total snaps. His numbers sit at 72.9 versus the run and 53.8 for pass rush.



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Cowboys fall to BYU

Wyoming linebacker Shae Suiaunoa chases down BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff during their game Sept. 14 at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie.


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As Bertagnole enters the final seven games of his collegiate career, his focus remains on improving every single week to help Wyoming chalk up W’s. He knows individually his pass rush has to improve. That goes for the entire defensive line across the board.

Bertagnole pointed out pass rush success will come as the defense wins on first and second down. Opposing quarterbacks are having so much success finding open targets within three seconds that the Pokes’ linemen don’t have enough time to get home.







Cowboys victorious over Air Force

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Wyoming strong safety Andrew Johnson chases down Air Force quarterback John Busha during their game Sept. 28 at War Memorial Stadium in Laramie.


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“Winning first and second down is probably the biggest part, because even if you are in a close game, if they’re in third and long, they’ve got to drop back and throw it, so that gives you an opportunity, too,” Bertagnole said.

With lessons learned from a difficult non-conference slate, Bertagnole and his defense line teammates are beginning to show progress.

“We’re taking steps forward. I’m super happy with seeing what we’re doing in practice right now,” he stated. “We all have a bunch of energy and we’re super happy with where we’re at right now in conference play. Obviously, the first four games didn’t go as planned. We’ve responded every week with improvement and so going into our second game of conference play 1-0 is our mantra.”

Follow UW beat writer Anthony Dion on Twitter @anthonydion03



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Casper veteran David Giralt joins race for Wyoming U.S. House seat

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Casper veteran David Giralt joins race for Wyoming U.S. House seat


CASPER, Wyo. — David Giralt, a Casper-raised military veteran and conservative Republican, has announced his candidacy for Wyoming’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The congressional seat is being vacated by Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman, who launched a campaign in December for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by retiring Sen. Cynthia Lummis. […]



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Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate

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Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate


It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.

WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026

Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.

CLASS 4A

Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)

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CLASS 3A

Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)

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CLASS 4A

Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)

Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic

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Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)

CLASS 3A

Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.

Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)

Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)

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Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)

Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)

Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)

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WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 1 Scores 2025-26

 

CLASS 4A

Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)

Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)

CLASS 3A

#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)

#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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CLASS 3A

Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)

Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)

Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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Wyoming Boys 4A Swimming & Diving State Championships 2026

4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne

Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com





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Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers

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Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers


Controversy has engulfed Wyoming’s state legislature after a conservative activist was photographed handing checks to Republican lawmakers on the state house floor, in an incident that has highlighted intra-conservative divisions and the role of money in the Cowboy state’s politics.

The political storm started on 9 February, when Karlee Provenza, a Democratic lawmaker, took a photo showing Rebecca Bextel, a conservative activist and committeewoman for the Teton county Republican party, handing a check to Darin McCann, a Republican representative, on the legislative floor. Marlene Brady, another Republican representative, stands in the photo’s background, a similar piece of paper pinched between her fingers.

“You have a person from the richest county in the country coming down to Cheyenne to hand out checks on the house floor,” Provenza said. “I have never seen something so egregious.”

Questions around the checks were soon swirling, and answers weren’t forthcoming. When asked what Bextel gave to her, Brady told a reporter for local outlet WyoFile: “I can’t remember.”

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Then Bextel herself addressed the incident. “I raised $400,000 in the last election cycle for conservative candidates, and I will be doubling that amount this year,” Bextel wrote on Facebook on 11 February. “There’s nothing wrong with delivering lawful campaign checks from Teton county donors when I am in Cheyenne.”

Since then, it has emerged that the checks came from Don Grasso, a wealthy Teton county donor, who told the Jackson Hole News and Guide that he wrote the checks for Bextel to deliver to 10 Freedom caucus-aligned politicians. Grasso said the checks were intended as campaign contributions, and were not tied to specific legislation. It is unclear how many checks were ultimately delivered, but two of four confirmed recipients include the speaker of the house, Chip Neiman, and John Bear, the former head of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

The Wyoming house has formed a legislative investigative committee, and the Laramie county sheriff’s office said they’d open a criminal investigation.

Bextel declined to answer questions from the Guardian. Brady, McCann and Bear did not respond to requests for comment.

Neiman said he considered the criticism a “wraparound smear campaign”. He said: “It never once crossed my mind that this was bribery.

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“These legislators, myself included, are now guilty until we can prove that we’re innocent. How is that right in this country? Isn’t that a little bit backwards?”

The scandal has highlighted long-standing divisions in Wyoming’s Republican party, which in recent years has seen a growing divide between old school, more moderate conservatives and a harder-right Freedom Caucus.

Several former Republican lawmakers forcefully condemned their colleagues for accepting the checks, and a local Republican party branch called for the lawmakers’ resignations.

Ogden Driskill, a Wyoming Republican senator, told the Guardian he does not consider Bextel’s actions to be illegal, but that “just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should”.

Bextel has spent years pushing against housing mitigation fees in Wyoming, and Driskill noted that she distributed the house floor checks just days before a bill she had publicly supported was set to be heard. Bextel was registered as a member of the press, not as a lobbyist when she delivered the checks.

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“Ethically and morally, it’s bankrupt to a massive degree,” Driskill said.

Neiman said that he and other legislators who received checks have supported similar bills in the past: “Bribery is paying somebody to do something they would not otherwise do.”

Nationally, the 2024 election cycle saw record-spending from the mega-wealthy, as well as dark money groups. Wyoming followed the trend, in a tense red-on-red primary season.

For those gearing up to campaign this year, Teton county, the richest in the US, and Bextel’s picturesque home turf, is an essential stop. Its extreme wealth gives it a foothold on the national level as well. Palantir chief executive Alex Karp and Donald Trump attended an annual Republican leadership fundraiser at Jackson Hole in 2024, and JD Vance attended the same one in 2025.

Bextel pulls dollars from Teton county into the Freedom Caucus side of Wyoming’s conservative split. She hosted no-press-allowed meet and greets earlier this year benefitting leading candidates for Wyoming’s governor and open US House seat.

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In an interview with the Open Range Record, a media network she co-founded, Bextel said controversy around the checks was solely because she was making “even playing field” in Wyoming against the state’s more moderate Republicans, who she calls “George Soros” candidates. She said that she will be sure to keep raising money – just away from the legislative floor.

“I guess I’m gonna ask all the gentlemen and gentleladies to step outside the Capitol while I hand them a check,” Bextel said. “Let me be clear: I’m doubling down.”

But it’s not just wealthy local donors putting their weight behind the factions. Last election cycle, out of state groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on anonymous and often inaccurate mailers.

“These actors, especially from the far right, they like to push the bounds of the norms,” said Rosa Reyna Pugh, an organizing and advocacy consultant at Western States Center, an Oregon-based non-profit focused on democracy in the western United States. “They like to see what policies they can kind of push, and see where they can play a piece,” Reyna Pugh said.

While Neiman and Driskill fight politically, they do agree on one thing: summer will bring an expensive and brutal campaign season.

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“You’re going to see more dark money than you’ve ever seen. We’ve done absolutely nothing to enforce it. Our secretary of state has not even made a slight attempt to deal with it,” Driskill said. “You’re going to see lots and lots of outside money and I think you’re seeing it on both sides.”

As national questions swirl around pay-to-play politics and profiteering in the Trump administration, Provenza wants better for the Cowboy State.

“We should not be aligning ourselves with how the federal government is conducting itself or how federal elections conduct themselves,” Provenza said. “We owe something far better and more honest to the people of Wyoming than that.”



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