The grind is real as we hit the end of September (just one more Newsletter left after this one for the month). Next week, we’ll see girls golf and softball districts, which seems way to quick. The following week moves into state for those two events, plus boys tennis and cross country districts.

Here at the newsletter we are just hoping that we are not sick in November. It will get busy. If you see any media out covering your school or your team, give them a shout. They likely aren’t getting much sleep.

Also, college hoops has started practice! Let’s dive in to the mid-week Newsletter with all of our hair, unlike Baylor Scheierman.

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 (we might try to make this a habit).

Waverly 28, York 0. The No. 3 Vikings ran for 225 yards on 46 carries against one of the state’s top defenses while pulling away in the second half for the win. Running back Aden Smith had 110 yards on 22 carries and scored three touchdowns for the victors. See you on the interstate, Vikings (more below).

Adams Central 17, Central City 14. New Adams Central head coach Josh Lewis coached the defense for previous coach Shawn Mulligan. It appears he’s still doing it. As their offense tries to grow the Patriots are 5-0 and gave up two touchdowns for the first time all season when they edge Central Ctiy on Friday. Jayden Techmeier ran for 118 yards and threw for just 35 yards in the win. But, they don’t draw pictures; just win baby.

SEM 28, Wilcox-Hildreth 22. The six-man ranks seem to be giving us multiple teams who might have a chance at a state title in Kearney. SEM entered the ranks a few weeks ago with a dominating 54-6 win over defending champion Parkview Christian. On Friday afternoon, Wilcox-Hildreth had the Mustangs in a 14-0 halftime hole, but couldn’t hold on as SEM scored the final 20 points. Only in six-man, the Mustangs used three players to go 18-for-25 passing for 199 yards to come back for the win.

RANK ‘EM: A few weeks of status quo in the nebpreps football Coaches Poll presented by Pinnacle Bank. Five teams — Westside, Bennington, Boone Central, North Platte St. Pat’s and South Loup — have been on top all year. And, now for a few weeks we see Norfolk Catholic steady at the top of Class C-2 (1 v 2 this week!!) and SEM rock solid in six-man. See the whole list of our coaches picks here for September 24. 

BANKING: Some weeks the vote is close and some weeks, well, barring a major turn around the Class C-2 battle between No. 1 Norfolk Catholic and No. 2 Battle Creek will take center stages for Mike Sautter in the Pinnacle Bank Game-of-the-Week. That one appears to be in control for this Friday in a group full of rivalry games. If you want to, you can still vote for your choice until noon today. 

TURNING POINT: The volleyball season as been, welp, crazy consistent with many of the teams we thought would be on the top of the polls right there at the just over halfway point of the season. The coaches poll posted it’s first No. 1 change all season in any class when Southwest took the top spot from Amherst in Class D-1 on Monday.

Everyone else is still where they started — Papillion-LaVista South, Skutt Catholic, Minden, Lincoln Lutheran and Overton. UPDATED COACHES POLL

In the Metro, over on nebpreps Jacob Padilla has a recap of the Allison Weston Invitational where Class A, No. 1 Papillion-LaVista South moved their record 21-0.

ALL THE SCORES // SEASON POWER POINTS 

NEW-LOOK SOFTBALL: District tournaments begin next Tuesday for softball around the state, which doesn’t seem possible. All roads will lead to Hastings for the new look state tournament which will start at eight in each class as normal before they pair down to two by Friday and then reconvene in Omaha on Monday for the first-ever televised state championships at Nebraska-Omaha.

We have our eye on a few postseason stories we hope to share with you, too! Connect with us the rest of the season as we’ll partner with nebpreps.com and @nebraskahssb (loads of scores and updates over there) for our softball coverage.

ALL THE SCORES // SEASON POWER POINTS // UPDATED COACHES POLL FROM SEPTEMBER 20

DISTRICT READY: Girls golf heads to the postseason early next week and, whoa, Class C appears to have all the makings of great individual and team races. On Monday, Lincoln Chirstian’s Olivia Lovegrove — the defending champion — fired a 66 at Quail Run at the Centennial Conference tournament. And, yesterday, Broken Bow edged Minden (it should be a fantastic team race) for the Southwest Conference title with a 347 team score. The Whippets were right behind at 354.

That Final Hill

KEARNEY COUNTRY CLUB — It’s rare that the media pass gets used for anything much more than media. There is one exception and it’s usually at Kearney Country Club to get close to the end of the cross country race at the UNK Invite or the state meet in late October.

Especially on a day like Monday.

Most believe 78-83 degrees (what we saw on Monday) is comfortable, but with no wind, zero clouds and a relentless sun it took a beating on many of the competitors at the UNK Invite. A breeze and some clouds with the same temperatures would have meant the world to some of those kids.

So, down I went. First for a reason in the Class B girls race — to walk that final trek up the hill to shade with my daughter. I don’t know, is it.a 20-foot incline to shade? To mom and dad. To a coach. To a tree. To a towel that’s wet and maybe has some ice on it.

There is a reason they can’t let everyone down there. It would be absolute chaos. So, for the rest of the day, I just put my arm out if someone needed it.

Yes, I was also going to interview each champion, to get some words and thoughts you might see in tomorrow’s Nerdslettter. And, nearly every time, I helped someone — or walked with a champion — up that hill.

“We can walk if you want to keep walking,” I told Juan Gonzalez after the won the Class A boys race. He had made sure to stay down and greet all of his teammates after they made their way to the finish.

“It’s just great to be out there on this course and pushing the pace a little bit,” he said, catching his breath and owning a bottle of water.

Most walks were quiet, like the one I had with a Gretna East runner. Or, the final walk with Class D champion Mason McGreer from Perkins County and his second place teammate Elijah Goodell, who had given everything but couldn’t manage the final walk on his own. So, we lifted him out.

“Hot and hilly,” McGreer said in describing the race once we finally made it to the big shade tree.

By the end of the day, the “guards” at the top were probably on to me. And, that’s fine. I hope they are ready for state, too. Because I’ll be doing the same thing.

Yes, it was warm in Kearney on Monday. Most of those kids have run in worse. They will do it again sometime soon, too, I am sure. And just because I wasn’t walking with or interviewing the winner of the race, doesn’t mean I wasn’t walking with a champion.

If you made that walk up the final hill you will always be a champion, no matter the time or the number in front of your finish. That’s why cross country hits just a little bit different.

Gritty Islanders

Someone probably questioned Marcus Ehrke’s sanity when he took the Grand Island Senior High volleyball head coaching position in 2020.

Sure, the Islanders weren’t far removed from consecutive state final appearances in 2007 and 2008, and they had returned to state in 2010, 2011 and 2013 under legendary head coach Bill Root.

But, after that, talent had turned. The Islanders had just one winning season from 2014-2019 and they went just 9-46 over Root’s final two seasons of his hall-of-fame career.

And, in that fall of 2020, they may have been right — the Islanders, in Ehrke’s first year in moving from Sidney, were 2-24.

“It was terrible,” he said, matter of factly.

READ TONY CHAPMAN’S FULL STORY ON NEBPREPS.COM

Parting Shot: Road Trip

WHAT’S 318 MILES BETWEEN FRIENDS: We might as that you faithful readers of the Newsletter bear with us on Saturday. One of our favorite things to do this fall has been to make unique content around Friday night football in Nebraska. For this, we have been extremely grateful for our partnership with Tom Dinsdale Automotive.

This Friday, we could be going nuts. We’ll pack our bags and head west to Scottsbluff following along with Class B, No. 3 Waverly on their trip to the panhandle. We hope you’ll enjoy what we are able to do to get behind the scenes with them.

Here’s a sneak peek at last week’s highlights from Northwest’s 35-34 win over Scottsbluff.