GLENDALE, Ariz. – The New York Mavericks have spent most of the 2025 PBR Camping World Team Series season fighting uphill. They’ve battled through lineup shakeups, injuries and heartbreaking finishes — but on Friday night inside Desert Diamond Arena, everything finally came together.

The Mavericks didn’t just win — they made history.

In a defining moment for a franchise built on grit and persistence, the Mavericks went a flawless 6-for-6, electing to take the reride on Bob Mitchell’s bull to record the first perfect game in team history and just the 10th in PBR Teams history. The win was more than clean — it was dominant. Over their last two games, the Mavericks have now covered 10 of their last 11 bulls, marking their best run in franchise history and one of the most electric stretches the league has seen from a 10th-ranked team.

“It may be the last event of the season, but it means a lot to me,” said head coach Kody Lostroh, smiling as the celebration unfolded around him. “It’s what I’ve envisioned these guys doing all season, and it’s what I know they’ve been capable of doing all season. I’ve been telling anyone that asks that these guys are on the verge of doing something really great.”

That vision finally became reality.

The tone of the game was set early — by Mitchell, the Mavericks’ leadoff rider and emotional spark. Mitchell’s role as the opener is one he takes seriously. “If that first guy goes out, makes a good bull ride, it kind of rocks the other team back on their heels,” he said. “I like the pressure of that.”

Mitchell burst from the chute aboard Blood Train, but the bull came down hard, smashing his vest and snapping one of its metal buckles clean off — a buckle later fixed by general manager Chris Pantani. “He hit something in my elbow,” Mitchell said. “It shot tingling through the whole right side of my hand.” He lost feeling in his hand as it hung limp, supinating as he walked out of the arena — helmet still on — looking every bit like a man headed for Sports Med.

Then came another challenge. Moments before Leonardo Castro was set to nod his head, his bull rope snapped clean in half as they were pulling it — less than 30 seconds before his ride. For most teams, that might’ve rattled the moment. But for the Mavericks, adversity has been the season’s constant companion.

Without missing a beat, Castro borrowed Hudson Bolton’s left-handed rope, flipped it backward to fit his right-handed grip and climbed aboard as if it had been the plan all along. The result was pure composure — 84.75 points on Malibu’s Top Dawg, putting another ride on the board on the way to history.

As the chutes stirred with quiet focus, Mitchell, still nursing his numb hand from his earlier wreck, noticed that Bolton’s rope — the same one Castro had just borrowed after his own snapped — was going to be used again for the last ride of the night. Knowing it would already be softened and slick from one ride, he quietly walked through the tunnel — helmet still on, vest buckle broken, but mind locked on the mission. He wasn’t heading for Sports Med. He was heading to help. Moments later, he reappeared with a wire brush and rosin in hand, ready to clean and prep the rope that had become the team’s shared lifeline. He didn’t say much, just got to work making sure the closer’s gear was ready. “I couldn’t just leave my team,” he said.

That steady, unshakable act — born from the same underdog mentality that’s carried this team all year — became the heartbeat of the Mavericks’ perfect night.

Julio Cesar Marques followed with 86 points on Nervous Hospital, cool and composed, doubling the Mavericks’ early momentum.

Then came the reride moment.

With his arm still numb, Mitchell’s bull was marked for a reride. Lostroh turned to Marco Rizzo, the 20-year-old whose grit had been tested all season.

“I kind of like being surprised,” Rizzo said with a grin. “When Kody called my name, I knew he believed in me. Once he said my name and I knew what bull I had, I was like, ‘Oh, this is going to be just right.’”

That bull was Lever Action, one Rizzo had faced years ago at his first-ever Velocity Tour event. This time, he made it count for more than just himself — 87.75 points, a statement ride that sent the Mavericks’ bench into chaos and swung all momentum even more in New York’s favor.

It was a perfect redemption moment for Rizzo, who’s quietly been one of the Mavericks’ emotional anchors during their late-season surge. “It’s been rough,” he admitted. “I’ve been getting wrecked out, falling off bulls I shouldn’t have. But I went home this week, worked hard at it and got on three practice bulls. Sometimes you just have to be a little tough and forget about it all.”

Off the dirt, Rizzo’s pregame ritual mirrors his team’s identity. Before nearly every event, he watches The Longest Yard, the classic film about underdogs banding together when no one believes they can win. “We’ve been that all season,” Rizzo said. “Just showing up, trying again.”

And if The Longest Yard is about heart, then Friday night was the Mavericks’ real-life version — a team of fighters who finally found their rhythm. As Rizzo put it, “If you have the heart, that’s 95% of it.”

In the fourth frame, João Henrique Lucas kept it rolling, matching up with Twisted Sister for 87.5 points, extending the Mavericks’ flawless streak and sealing the game before the closer even mounted.

But perfection still needed one more whistle.

Enter Hudson Bolton — the 2025 PBR Rookie of the Year and current leader in the PRCA Rookie of the Year race. Fresh off the regular-season PRCA trail, this event marked just his second outing of the 2025 Teams season, but the 19-year-old Tennessee native has been everything a team could ask for in a closer: steady, confident and unshakable. A fearless competitor with the poise of a veteran, Bolton has quickly become one of the sport’s brightest rising stars.

He climbed aboard In My Blood, gripping that same battle-worn rope that had already seen one war that night. It was soft, slick and layered in arena dust from the night’s chaos. “It was slick,” Bolton said with a laugh. “That’s why my hand popped out at the end.” But it held long enough.

Bolton matched the energy of his teammates, posting 86 points and locking in the Mavericks’ 432-point total — the fourth-highest perfect game score in league history.

“I didn’t really feel the pressure,” Bolton said. “We already had the game won, so I was just having fun doing my job.”

When the final whistle blew, the Mavericks erupted. Helmets flew. Dust rose. Every frustration of the season — every tough break and close call — was washed away in one perfect night.

“You know, when you come in prepared, you’re confident about what you’re about to do at the events,” Lostroh said. “They’ve become very consistent about putting in the work every day, even if they feel like crap — they’re going to show up and do the things that are required to get better. And it’s finally just come to fruition.”

The night wasn’t perfect because it was easy — it was perfect because it was earned. A broken vest buckle. A not-so-funny funny bone shot. A borrowed rope. A reride that changed everything. Six-for-six, 432 points and a team that refused to quit.

Every cowboy contributed to the story: Mitchell’s leadoff and loyalty, Castro’s poise, Marques’ composure, Rizzo’s redemption, Lucas’ belief and Bolton’s nail in the coffin.

With 10 of their last 11 bulls conquered and remaining the only team this season to have defeated the No. 1 Florida Freedom not once, but twice, the Mavericks no longer look like a No. 10 seed. For a group of young men who started the year scraping for answers, the concrete cowboys have become the lions of their own jungle — finding their rhythm at exactly the right time and proving that persistence always pays off.

“We might be late to the party,” Rizzo said with a grin. “But we showed up. And that’s what matters.”

The New York Mavericks didn’t just beat the Nashville Stampede Friday night. They rode through bruises, borrowed gear and bad luck. They rode for each other. And when the dust finally settled, they rode straight into history.

Photo courtesy of Bull Stock Media