Time For Toughness

It’s that time of year, right? Perfect weather one day, cruddy the next. And, maybe your event is in both kinds. Welcome to Nebraska.

We had it all this week. Perfect softball weather, cruddy softball weather. Adjusted calendars for just about everything. And, finally, on a Friday; playoff football weather. You gotta learn how to win in the elements. Our Nebraska athletes did it all this week and then some.

Time for our buzz around the state — this one could get long. Football from Class A down to D-1 tonight as we had cameras at five games. As the playoffs approach follow us on Instagram and Twitter for photos of all the action in the Nebraska fall postseason.

We have another busy week ahead — champions coming in softball, tennis and cross country — before the final 16-team football brackets come out next Saturday morning.

New Season

NEBRASKA 66 AND US 81: Cross County football coach Matt Carroll is now 16-0 in the regular season during his two-year tenure here at the crossroads of these two highways.

Quite frankly, he could care less.

“As far as I am concerned,” he said Friday after his third-ranked Cougars knocked off No. 7 Shelby-Rising City 46-8, “I am 0-1 as a head coach.”

He speaks, of course, of his Cougars stunning 42-22 defeat last year to Weeping Water in the first round of the Eight-Man 1 playoffs. It stung even more when district mate Clarkson/Leigh — who CC beat in the regular season last year — won the state championship.

“If I am being honest with you,” he continued, “I think about it every day. We have a lot to prove next week. I know I have a bunch of guys who think about it, too. It’s kept us focused all year long.”

On Friday night, playing their backyard (and undefeated) rival, the Cougars settled in and completely dominated the game on the defensive side of the football.

After the Huskies fumbled on the opening snap of the game and Nebraska walk-on commit Izaac Dickey quickly scored from the 3, SRC bounced back with a 51-yard touchdown run from Gabe Dutton-Mofford.

The game was tied 8-8 and it as close as it would get.

Cougar quarterback Lucas Jacobsen went 78 yards for a touchdown on the next possession and the Huskies wouldn’t record another first down the rest of the contest. They finished the game with 92 yards on 33 plays and to make matters worse, they turned it over three more times.

“I was really proud of how our defense played,” Carroll said. “We have some things we really need to get cleaned up offensively, but that’s one heck of a defense we played tonight, too.”

Carroll’s not wrong.

It says here that SRC could cause some fits in the playoffs with a swarming defense that was constantly against the 8-ball on Friday night. Despite the score, CC had three more possessions get directly inside the SRC 15 and came away empty.

In 8-man, the postseason is now. And, at Cross County there will be work to erase a memory.

The Rest of Friday

34 AND COUNTING: Bennington just keeps on, keeping on. The two-time defending champion Badgers have now won 34 consecutive football games and Friday’s 14-0 meat grinder over No. 4 Elkhorn North was just fine thank you.

Certainly the wind played a factor in this one and you have to build your team to be able to handle it. Bennington did just enough. A big 55-yard pass early, some very timely stops (one a sudden change off a blocked punt) and the running of Quinton Archer who had 30 carries for over 130 yards.

OVER AT BUELL: If Friday night was a state championship game preview between Class A, No. 1 Omaha Westside and No. 2 Millard South, we’ll take it again on Thanksgiving week. While Westside won 31-14, how it got their was filled with some second half Patriot fight.

The Warriors led 10-0 at halftime and 17-0 in the third quarter, before Millard South made things interesting when Dylan Kuhl scored twice — a short run, and then a scoop and score fumble off an Anthony Rezac fumble with just under six minutes left.

Champions respond and that’s what Westside did. They drove the field after the turnover and Rezac scored on a 19-yard run (see below) and Jordon Hurst capped it with a 70-yard pick-six inside the final two minutes. Game thread // Rezac Post-Game

THURSDAY NIGHT: Papillion-LaVista continues to do their thing. They moved to 7-1 with a 34-7 win over Creighton Prep and Payton Prestito was over 300 yards on 37 carries in this one, while also playing linebacker on defense. A high volume two-way player rare like this in Class A. Sautter Game Thread 

WHAT ELSE: Waverly keeps rolling in Class B. Quick start gets Omaha North past GISH. SEM still perfect in six-man. C-1, No. 2 Wahoo takes down DC West. Ashland-Greenwood to 7-1 with win over Roncalli.

ALL THE SCORES // PLAYOFF POWER POINTS

Not In Hastings Anymore

STATE SOFTBALL: How crazy has state softball been in the new format? Well, not that crazy. But, the weather? Another story. I mean, the ladies were playing through tornado warnings in Adams County on Thursday with Friday play never getting started. Where’s Toto at anyway?

Six teams are still in Hastings.

All four Class A teams have one-loss: Gretna, Lincoln Southwest, Millard North and Papillion-LaVista. That’s because Papio and Gretna forced elimination games late Thursday.

So, did Class B defending champion Grand Island Northwest. The Vikings — after losing to Scottsbluff on opening day — beat Waverly, Hastings and Elkhorn North to stay alive. They’ll need to beat the Wolves one more time to advance to a Monday title game with Blair.

Class C didn’t have any elimination games as undefeated’s Ashland-Greenwood and Bishop Neumann went through bracket play without a blemish to advance to Monday’s 1:00 state title game at Omaha’s Connie Claussen Field. It will be the first-ever televised statewide broadcast of the state softball tournament.

All three Saturday games — Gretna, Milard North; Lincoln Southwest, Papio and Northwest, Elkhorn North — will be played at 11:00 AM. Winners advance to Monday’s championship games.

THE BRACKETS // WEDNESDAY RECAP 

Championship Season Begins

HISTORY MAKERS: Before the weather got crazy, it was near perfect conditions for the 2023 girls state golf tournaments. Lincoln East (Class A) upended two-time champion Lincoln Southwest, with Omaha Duchesne defending their Class B team title at Scotts Bluff Country Club.

The biggest story was in Class C, where Broken Bow won their fourth title in a row in record-setting fashion defeating conference rival Minden by nine shots with a team score of 681. The two-day total was a Class C record and Minden’s 690 team total was just the fifth time ANY team has gone under 700 for the two-day event.

Individually, Southwest’s Eden Larson defeated East’s Isabella Elgert in a playoff in Class A. Kierra Paquette of Beatrice shot rounds of 76 and 77 to win by two shots in Scottsbluff and Bow’s Camryn Johnson capped her career with a two-day 149 to win Class C over 2022 champion Olivia Lovegrove of Lincoln Christian.

CLASS A SCORES // CLASS B SCORES // CLASS C SCORES

CROSS COUNTRY: District cross country meets were held (mostly) Wednesday with a couple left over for Thursday due to weather. All roads now lead to this Friday’s state meet at Kearney Country Club which begins at noon with the Class B girls race. Hundreds, thousands (???) of photos from multiple district races over on the Prep Running Nerd Facebook page.

NSAA STATE CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS PAGE

TENNIS: The new look to the boys state tennis championships was hit by weather as well this week, moving the conclusion of the Class A meet to today (after being scheduled to finish on Friday).

Defending champion Lincoln East and Creighton Prep are tied at the top of the standings with 36 points each and with both singles and doubles teams still alive in each of the four brackets. Championship matches will begin today at 1:00.

The new format has Class A running Thursday and Friday with Class B moving to next Monday and Tuesday.

NSAA STATE TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS PAGE

Parting Shot: Bye Week

The Saturday BYE week turned a little busy on the prep landscape during the week with the addition of the three state semifinal softball games to the line up. It all comes after our 8-Man bracket reveal show on Striv Sports at 8:00 AM. The full slate is below. We’ll also be with Mike Sautter and Eric Allgood next Saturday for the remaining playoff football bracket reveals.