03/24/26 Nerdsletter

Contributor: The Nerd

It takes us a while to get into Nerdsletter shape each season, but we'll do our best to keep you informed.

A groundbreaking change

We noticed over the weekend that athletic.net has converted from PR (personal record) to PB (personal best). In the past PR was more commonly used by high school athletes while PB was a college thing, but apparently athletic.net has decided that SB (season best) and PB are the terms we're supposed to use.

Results

Meet results for last week are linked on our webpage at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/trackresults. We try to update this page every few days as results are posted on athletic.net or sent to us.

The next section lists notable performances by event. Here are a few athletes who had excellent meets last week:

• Anisten Wortmann, Hartington Cedar Catholic - She posted the week's fastest 60 hurdles' time in 8.84 and, in what appears to be the junior's first career open 400, she ran a 58.31.

  
  

• Kennedy and Brock Bailey - The Dundy County Stratton sister and brother are several feet ahead of the next-best results in the shot put, with Kennedy going 46-08.5 and Brock throwing 62-00.00. Kennedy also threw 146-05 in the discus, fifteen inches shy of her PB. The siblings swept the Class D weight events at Burke in 2025.

  
  

• Kerstyn Chapek, Bishop Neumann - The uncommitted senior swept the sprint events at Doane, running 7.74 (4th best time last week), 25.79 (3rd) and 58.58 (3rd). She already has nine individual State T&F medals and three 4x400 State medals, and she's the two-time defending Class C 400-meter titlist.

  
  

• Aaliyah Perry, Millard North - The sophomore may be a handful this season based on her 7.53 (prelim) and 7.52 (final) in the 60 meters and her 39-00.00 triple jump on Saturday at College of St. Mary. Those were her only two events so it will be interesting to see if her excellence expands to the 200 and long jump as the season progresses.

  
  

• Boy pole vaulters - Last week there were eight boys who vaulted at least 13-06, led by Kendall Vanicek's (Millard South) mark of 14-10.00.

  
  

• Landri Gates, Norris - Landri posted a 19-03.25 long jump on Saturday at Doane, just shy of the Class B record of 19-06.50 set by Tierra Williams of Auburn in 2013. Landri is the defending champion in that event.

Our first State record?

Chayden Hoffmaster of Cozad had a long jump of 24-05.50 at Friday's UNK meet, topping the existing Class B record of 23-08.25 set by Tyler Wullenwaber of Centennial in 2009. Unfortunately, there was some confusion at the meet whether the NSAA accepts indoor marks for State records - I've since confirmed that they do - so the jump will be submitted to the NSAA this week. If the mark is approved, it would be the first State record of the season. As we noted back in 2024, there is already at least one indoor mark on the State record books: the Class A long jump record of 25-00.25 was set in March 2005 by Robert Rands of Bellevue East at an indoor meet at the Dakota Dome, per this World Herald article. Two months later Rands jumped 24-11.25 at the State meet. Interestingly, the 25-00.25 jump broke Gale Sayer's mark of 24-10 from the 1961 State meet. For many years, including in 1961, the State long jump competition was effectively held in an indoor venue underneath the stands at Memorial Stadium in an area nicknamed the Mushroom Gardens. Chayden's 24-05.50 leap is over a foot better than Chayden's previous best and had the UNK pavilion buzzing, perhaps in part because Chayden is a UNK T&F commit.

Titan Classic 1600

We've been saying for years that we're in the golden age of girls' high school distance running. That talent will be showcased on Thursday, April 16, at the Titan Classic at Papio South High School. While entries may change, at this time we're expecting the girls' 1600 field to include four sub-5:00 girls and at least two others with strong sub-5:00 potential. We'll share more information later, but we've definitely got April 16th circled on the Nerd calendar.

Photos

Depending on whether their work schedules cooperated, our Nerds may have made it to as many as ten meets last week. Albums for five meets are already posted at https://www.facebook.com/PrepRunningNerd/photos_albums and more will be added once the Nerds have time to edit photos. If you're looking for albums in chronological order, about once a week we update our meet listing at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/2022.

Keep in mind that indoor meets are difficult to shoot. Photographers are dealing with poor lighting, non-scenic backgrounds and tight quarters. We promise that our outdoor pics will be prettier.

As a reminder, we post the photos for athletes and their family to share and download. If you're a media outlet, we require you to request permission for each photograph you'd like to use in your publication. We're happy to support small-town newspapers but we want to keep track of where the photos are published.

Here are examples of the photos we've uploaded as of Tuesday at 5:00 p.m.

Doane 3/19 (Volley Nerd)

UNK 3/19 (Valley Nerd)

Doane 3/20 (Nerdfall)

Cambridge 3/20 (Valley Nerd)

Elkhorn South 3/20 (Royal Nerd)

Elkhorn South 3/20 (Nerd Sr)

HELP!

Each weekend we put out a request on X and Facebook asking our followers to tell us what meets they're attending the following week. We build our meet schedule at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/trackresults with the responses, and that schedule allows us to assign Nerds and track down results. At the risk of offending our 20,000 followers on Facebook, the number of responses the first two weeks of the season has been a bit lackluster. Here's my most compelling argument: if we don't know about a meet, there's a zero percent chance that a Nerd is going to show up with a camera.

Irish Nerd article

Just in case you missed last week's Nerdsletter, our high school contributor Irish Nerd has published an article on Kaser Johnson of Doniphan-Trumbull at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/post/kaser. Kaser won the Class D cross country title last fall.

Commitments for Class of 2026

We're compiling a list of cross country and track and field commitments for the Class of 2026 at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/post/2026commit. If we've missed you or your favorite athlete, please shoot us a DM or an email to jayslagle@hotmail.com.

Summer camps

We've received information on three summers camps:

• Nebraska Wesleyan is offering a 3-hour T&F camp on Friday, May 29 with different sessions for Youth and Middle/High School. Cost is $45. Info at https://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/student-life/athletics/camps/nwu-summer-track-and-field-camps.

  
  

• Nebraska Wesleyan is offering summer speed sessions for one hour Wednesdays from June 10 through July 29 for students entering grades 6-8. Info at https://www.nebrwesleyan.edu/student-life/athletics/camps/summer-speed-series

  
  

• Coach Ramsey is moving his annual cross country summer camp from Colorado to Omaha; it will be held July 5-12. You can find more information at https://ccrunningcamps.org/.

The website https://runningcamps.org/find.php?search=MO also lists a number of summer camps, sorted by state, but this appears to be a relatively new website and doesn't list camps offered by Nebraska colleges. Colleges can reach out to me if they'd like me to share camp information.

Story tips

If you're a teammate, coach or parent of someone who has a cool story or an amazing accomplishment, don't be afraid to send us a DM or email us at jayslagle@hotmail.com. While we might not use your story, there's a chance we will. Although there are Nerds everywhere, some of our best content has come from tips from folks like you.

Notable results

Approximately half of high school teams competed in the season's first three days and the majority of the meets were held indoors. We won't release our performance database until mid-April after we have a large collection of outdoor results, but here are a few marks that caught our eye:

60 meters

Dallas Davison, Papio South, 6.82

Evan Svoboda, Norfolk, 6.83

Evvann Daniels, Columbus, 6.84

Trey Stoynev, Lincoln Southwest, 6.91

60 hurdles

Beau Fujan, Bishop Neumann, 7.98

Ethan Laux, Creighton Prep, 8.05

Braxton Badman, Waverly, 8.07

200 meters

Evan Svoboda, Norfolk, 21.88 indoor

Brody Galyen, West Holt, 21.93 indoor

Langen Lingenfelter, Lincoln East, 21.98 outdoor

400 meters

Will Urosevich, Westside, 48.79 indoor

Josh Paulsen, Elkhorn South, 49.24 outdoor

Logan Ferron, Roncalli, 50.14 indoor

Charlie Caldwell, Lincoln Lutheran, 50.16 indoor

800 meters

Brayden Romero, Elkhorn, 1:56.75

Dalan Hochstein, Papio South, 1:58.05

Tyler Smith, Lincoln North Star, 1:59.82

Christophe Widwick, Holdrege, 2:00.13

1600 meters

Zander Carson-Koestner, Elkhorn South, 4:27.09

Aiden Gehring, Papio South, 4:29.67

Jared Schroeder, Waverly, 4:30.77

3200 meters

David Protzman, Norfolk, 9:51

Aden Soto, Fremont, 9:52

Hylan Caouette, Creighton Prep, 9:55

4x400

Elkhorn South, 3:26.91 outdoor

Papio South, 3:29.85 outdoor

Columbus Lakeview, 3:30.04 indoor

Bellevue West, 3:31.75 indoor

4x800

Elkhorn, 8:16.16

Omaha Skutt, 8:23.05

Shot put

Brock Bailey, Dundy County Stratton, 62-00.00

Jake Brock, Creighton Prep, 58-03

Preston Ozenbaugh, Norris, 54-07.75

Owen James, Westside, 54-4

Discus

Barrett Kitrell, Ashland-Greenwood, 171-01

Derek Russell, Aurora, 169-08

Zack Wulf, Kearney, 157-09

Long jump

Chayden Hoffmaster, Cozad, 24-05.50

Maurice Purify, Westside, 23-07.5

Pierce Parker, Bellevue West, 23-00.75

Jamar Henderson, Lincoln Northwest, 23-00.50

Triple jump

John Becker, Creighton Prep, 46-11.25

Dut Akot, Omaha Gross, 46-02.25

Pierce Parker, Bellevue West, 46-02.25

High jump

Tyler Daly, Platteview, 6-09

Ryan Rifer, Summerland, 6-05

Pole vault

Kendall Vanicek, Millard South, 14-10

Ike Schmeckpeper, Gretna East, 14-04

Kade Evans, Millard West, 14-04

Beau Wells, Ord, 14-00

Jax Rickertson, Gothenburg, 14-00

Girls' marks

60 meters

Aaliyah Perry, Millard North, 7.52

Hazel Haarberg, Kearney Catholic, 7.65

Tre-sor Porter, Millard North, 7.71

Kerstyn Chapek, Bishop Neumann, 7.74

60 hurdles

Anisten Wortmann, Hartington Cedar Catholic, 8.84

Addison Darnell, Auburn, 9.04

Janiyah Willis, Bellevue West, 9.12

200 meters

Mia Cushing, Elkhorn, 25.42 outdoors

Addison Kuntz, Bennington, 25.66 indoors

Kerstyn Chapek, Bishop Neumann, 25.79 indoors

400 meters

Addie West, Omaha Skutt, 58.11indoor

Anisten Wortmann, Hartington Cedar Catholic, 58.31 indoor

Kerstyn Chapek, Bishop Neumann, 58.58 indoor

Karlie Villwok, Elkhorn, 59.01 outdoor

800 meters

Emma Steffensen, Waverly, 2:18.82

Leah Robinson, Elkhorn North, 2:19.37

Emily Scott, Millard West, 2:21.21

1600 meters

Emily Hegge, Papio South, 5:09.57

Tatum Nielson, Bellevue West, 5:15.87

Ashlynn Carter, Papio South, 5:16.24

Lucy Zabloudil, Gretna, 5:18.84

3200 meters

Cece Kramper, Roncalli/Duchesne, 11:03

Meredith Marsh, Lincoln Southwest, 11:14

Piper Petersen, Lincoln Southwest, 11:20

4x400

Omaha Marian, 4:04.73

Bennington, 4:05.84

West Holt, 4:07.96

4x800

Papio South, 9:40

Gretna, 9:53

Elkhorn, 9:58

Shot put

Kennedy Bailey, Dundy County Stratton, 46-08.50

Ariana Keusinkvelt, Crete, 41-06.75

Bailey Theis, Dorchester, 40-11.25

Karlene Kelper, North Central, 40-11

Discus

Kennedy Bailey, Dundy County Stratton, 146-05

Chelsea Kottich, Elm Creek, 139-03

Hayley Arp, Arlington, 133-06

Abriel Sutton, Lexington, 127-10

Long jump

Landri Gates, Norris, 19-03.25 (Class B record is 19-06.5)

Marianne Forney, Omaha Marian, 18-03.00

Ayla Karrett, Consestoga, 18-02.25

Triple jump

Aaliyah Perry, Millard North, 39-00

Auzlynn Anderson, Westside, 37-07

Melrose Mixan, Gretna East, 37-01

High jump

Marlea Donahey, Palmer, 5-06

Kate Hessel, Millard West, 5-06

Claire Hellbusch, Lincoln North Star, 5-06

Pole vault

Alyssa Onnen, Kearney Catholic, 11-06

Lily Chandler, Pleasonton, 11-00

Danielle Hunter, Scottsbluff, 11-00

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First published at www.preprunningnerd.com by Jay Slagle on March 24, 2026. If you find an error, shoot us an e-mail at jayslagle@hotmail.com and we'll get it fixed.

Like this coverage of the Nebraska T&F and cross country scene? There's more of this at www.preprunningnerd.com. Check out the Blog tab for our frequent stories and the Results tab for every Nebraska high school meet we can find. If you want to see meet photos or just need to kill a few hours on social media, follow us on Twitter and Instagram @PrepRunningNerd or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/preprunningnerd.

Finally, if you think runners, jumpers and throwers are the best things on earth, you'll enjoy our two most popular articles. In 2018 we published "The Runner with the Broken Heart" about a high school boy who finished last in nearly every race he ran. In 2022 we published, "The Fall and Rise of Emmett ," a story about a high school triple jumper who became a quadrapalegic after a swimming accident.