You’ll often find Nebraska football coach Matt Rhule saying some variation of “you usually aren’t as bad or as good as you think you are” and he’s probably right in that life is best lived in the middle. Maybe your record is propped up by a schedule and difficult games are ahead. Or, it could be the opposite — you have gone through the ringer and came out better for it.

Such is life in October in Nebraska. You hope you’ve reaped a good harvest, because state tournament and playoff t-shirts need to be in the budget. And you hope there is a few Friday night playoff popcorns in your future as well. State tournament or district final road trips. It’s going to be busy, we hope to send you some good stories.

Let’s dive in to the mid-week Newsletter because the time is changing; hopefully the temperature and the leaves too.

The High School Roundup

A lot of things to do and get you caught up on for a Wednesday in high school sports. Let’s get you ready for the rest of the week and see what we missed.

UPON FURTHER REVIEW: You know, look, we are always going to miss some in the Saturday newsletter, so we found three Friday night football games we wanted to showcase for you in today’s letter (I guess we have made this a habit).

Kearney Catholic 31, Hastings St. Cecilia 7. Senior quarterback Brant Christner threw for two touchdowns as the Stars jumped to a 14-0 lead on then No. 6 St. Cecilia and then cruised to a 31-7 win. The win moved KC to 5-1 on the season — undefeated in Class C-2 — and sets up a huge match up against No. 3 Ord this week. Ord has dominated four opponents, while losing to No. 1 Norfolk Catholic and No. 2 Battle Creek. The Bluehawks dropped from the rankings, but they’ll get another chance in two weeks against No. 9 Fillmore Central.

Hampton 1, Santee 0 (forfeit). There are no stats for this one, but Hampton has not played a football game since September 8th. You read that right. A scheduling quirk — they lost Elba on their regular schedule — forced the NSAA to give them a Week Zero game with Franklin. This created two weeks off on the 15th and 22nd. Then, last Thursday came the call that Santee had to forfeit their Friday contest. For Coach Jereme Jones and the No. 10 Hawks they are just hoping to put their uniforms on Friday night against Heartland Lutheran.

Ainsworth 60, EPPJ 8. Carter Nelson and his Ainsworth buddies are playing a little bit of defense up north. On Friday, they topped EPPJ (then 4-1) and have allowed just 28 points in six games. For his part, Nelson is doing a little bit of everything: 462 yards passing, 572 rushing and 410 receiving. Has their ever been a 500-500-500 man in Nebraska football history? Let us know if you have an idea. On Tuesday, the Nebraska commit was named one of eight finalists for the Nebraska Mr. Football Award.

RANK ‘EM: The cream at the top of the nebpreps Coaches Poll for football presented by Pinnacle Bank continues to play well. Five of the seven preseason No. 1 teams still leading the rankings: Westside, Bennington, Boone Central, North Platte St. Pat’s and South Loup. Westside gets undefeated Kearney on Friday (and could get undefeated Millard South next week). In Class C-2, No. 1 Norfolk Catholic topped No. 2 Battle Creek and in six-man SEM has remained untouched. See the whole list of our coaches picks here for October 1st. 

GOTW: Our friend Mike Sautter’s Pinnacle Bank Game-of-the-Week is always a big hit. With multiple big games this week across the state, there are five choices for his coverage, but it appears to be a two-horse race heading into the final hours. Can Scotus and Wahoo hang on over Kearney and Westside? Does a game have a trick up their sleeve? You can still vote for your choice until noon today. 

STARTING TO SEPARATE: As the high school volleyball season trucks on, we are starting to see the best rise to the top of each class. Papillion-LaVista South looks strong in Class A. Can Norris, Elkhorn North or Bennington stop Omaha Skutt from a ninth straight Class B title? Can Minden and Lincoln Lutheran stay undefeated in Class C-1 and C-2? Will conference mates Amherst and Overton be able to stay strong in Class D-1 and D-2?

We will answer all of those questions over the next few weeks. OCTOBER 2 COACHES POLL

Catch up on some of our stories and recaps from the season. Papio South at the Alison Weston Invite. Bennington’s quick start to the season. Elkhorn North’s big win over Bennington. Grand Island’s resurgance.

ALL THE SCORES // SEASON POWER POINTS // THE NEBRASKA VOLLEYBALL SHOW with Nebraska Tok

THE TREK TO HASTINGS (THEN OMAHA): The most important week of the prep softball season is well underway as on Monday we set up the district final round in Classes B and C. In Class A, the seven district tournaments begin today. It all leads to next week’s state tournament in Hastings.

Class A: The state’s biggest schools still play double-elimination tournaments with the seven winners, plus one wild card advancing to the state tournament. Top seeds and district hosts: Gretna, Millard North, Papillon-LaVista, Lincoln East, Lincoln Southwest, Millard West and Omaha Westside. The current top wild card team would be Norfolk. Finals are set for Thursday.

Class B and C: Sub-districts on Monday lead to Friday and Saturday’s district final round. In each class, ten sub-district winners advanced as well as six wild card teams to the district final round. These teams have been seeded 1-16 for the final round that is a best 2-of-3 series with games played either Friday or Saturday based on the decision of the schools. DISTRICT FINAL SERIES

Stay with us over the next two weeks as we’ll partner with nebpreps.com and @nebraskahssb (loads of scores and updates over there) for our softball coverage. We have a couple of big stories we are working for state tournament week.

ALL THE SCORES // SEASON POWER POINTS // SEPTEMBER 27 COACHES POLL

HEADED TO STATE: As we type, girls golf districts were supposed to be complete, but, hey, we live in Nebraska. The Class A field is set. In Class B at Rivers Wild in Blair, play will resume at 4:00 today after storms interrupted their play. Three Class C districts were moved from Tuesday to Wednesday.

In Class A, district champions were Lincoln Southwest, Lincoln East, Omaha Marian and Omaha Westside. For Westside, they defeated Elkhorn South in a team playoff after both shot 333 at Fairplay Golf Course in Norfolk. In the A-1, Southwest went 1-2-3 and won by 48 shots over Gretna. In the A-2 and the A-3, Lincoln East and Omaha Marian held the first five places at each tournament. Sheesh.

Class B team champs (so far) are Beatrice, York and Scottsbluff. Beatrice’s Keira Paquette, Lakeview’s Alicia Mueller and Scottsbluff’s Nelli Heinold were district champions.

Just two of five districts have finished in Class C. In the C-1 at Hidden Valley defending champion Olivia Lovegrove of Lincoln Christian led the way with a 69 and led her team to a team title. Out west at the C-5, Valentine had the team title and individual medalist Kaetryn Bancroft who shot 84.

Parting Shot: Take the Trip

636 MILES (ROUND TRIP): The Newsletter took a trip on Friday. We recommend you do it whenever you get the chance, too. Not to Scottsbluff or Gering in particular. Go anywhere your kids might take you.

That said, Dante and I did decide that it’d be an awesome place to live and we’d buy a couple Nuggets jerseys.

“Two hours and 45 minutes to Denver,” said Bearcat football coach Jud Hall. Definitely some pull to the west.

We went to watch cross country (your reminder to read the Nerdsletter, always a lesson in there, too) as that’s our main thing in the fall. Next year, we hope to add golf once the ACL is healed. Dad stayed for the football game. But the main idea here is you don’t get these chances back. We had a lot of these long days with show choir, too, and wouldn’t trade them for the world.

You’ll feel dead broke some days, but you can get through it. The memories make it all worth the sacrifice. High school sports and activities teach us all the lessons, it’s just that it is hard to keep our eyes open and soak them all in when the time is right.

On Friday, the time was right. But, really, it’s always right. Take the trip.