When David Espinoza competed in the 2012 Texas Recreation and Park Society's Equipment Rodeo on Nov. 9, he literally blew the competition away.

Espinoza was competing in the leaf-blowing competition, which required him to use the tool to guide a tennis ball through an obstacle course. Espinoza's third place finish ultimately helped his team achieve second place at the competition, beating out challengers from San Antonio, Georgetown, Round Rock, Eagle Pass, Travis County, Temple, New Braunfels and Cedar Park.

Kyle finished 11 points behind Austin, which took the top spot, and one point ahead of San Antonio, which finished third.

With a population of roughly 30,000 people, Kyle was the second-smallest city in the competition. The Equipment Rodeo is an opportunity for each city's Parks and Recreation Department to show off its skills in competitions ranging from the leaf-blowing challenge to weed and plant identification.

Kerry Urbanowicz, parks and recreation director for the City of Kyle, said that in previous years, the city has barely missed the chance to compete at the state level, but this year "everything came together."

"We're real proud of them because, well, when you're competing against a town that has 200 maintenance guys and we only have 15, the odds aren't very good," Urbanowicz said.

Three Kyle Parks and Recreation Department employees—Espinoza, Amado Gomez and Ronnie Esparza—qualified for the state competition, which will be held in March.

The team of Gomez and Espinoza earned second place in the team truck and trailer event, which involved backing a truck and trailer through a tight obstacle course without hitting any cones. Espinoza, Gomez and Esparza each took home third place finishes for leaf-blowing, nail-driving and a lawn mower obstacle course, respectively.

The city's three participants were supported by most of the Parks and Recreation Department. Espinoza, who has worked in the department for six years, said seeing his coworkers cheer him on was a testament to the entire department's work.

"It feels great," Espinoza said. "It's a team effort. We practice team effort every day. Every morning we talk about it and try to practice it every day."

Espinoza said the team from Kyle has made quite a name for itself at the competition since it began participating five years ago. When the representatives from the city arrived at the competition this year, the other competitors greeted them by chanting, "Here comes Kyle," he said.

"When we first started going, we went just to go have fun and figure things out," Espinoza said. "We would come out with first and seconds and thirds and things like that. Everybody from that day on started picking on us."

The state competition will pit the Kyle representatives against their counterparts from across the state. Espinoza said he and his Kyle cohorts might do a bit of practicing, but they are not nervous about the level of competition.

"We've been doing some practicing but you can pretty much just say we're naturals," he said.