4/14/26 Nerdsletter

jayslagle
11 hours ago
10 min read

Contributor: The Nerd

**New State records (*pending)**

Last week was a bit quiet on the record front with dicey weather cancelling a few meets and high winds negating chances for records in sprints and jumps. The Knox County invite featured the only potential records of the week, both by Crofton freshman Avery Arens. The meet results posted on our site at this link reflect that Avery posted times of 5:00.00 (1600) and 10:51.65 (3200) at the meet, which are faster than the existing Class C records of 5:05.25 and 10:59.05. However, the meet was hand-timed, which for record certification purposes means that Avery's times needed to be recorded by at least three watches and adjusted for a handheld-to-electronic timing conversion factor. If the Knox County times aren't accepted by the NSAA, in my opinion it's only a matter of weeks before Avery gets the official records. In fact, the 1600 handheld time may be a moot issue if the Titan Classic 1600 (see below) on Thursday plays out like we expect.

Throughout the season we'll keep track of performances that have been or will be forwarded to the NSAA for record certification:

#7 - Avery Arens of Crofton ran a 10:51.65 3200 at the Knox County meet on Wednesday, April 8. If the handheld time is accepted by the NSAA, it will break the Class C record of 10:51.65 set by Tamala Resh of Shelton in 1983.

#6 - Avery Arens of Crofton ran a 5:00.00 1600 at the Knox County meet on Wednesday, April 8. If the handheld time is accepted by the NSAA, it will break the Class C record of 5:05.25 set by Rylee Rice of Ainsworth in 2017.

#5 - Brock Bailey of Dundy County Stratton threw the shot 63-10.00 at the Perkins County meet on Friday, April 2nd. This mark breaks his previous but not-yet-certified-by-the-NSAA Class D record throw of 63-04.25 (see #2 below) at the Southern Valley meet on March 27.

#4 - Abigael Spargo of Dundy County Stratton set the Class D 300 hurdles record with her 44.12 mark at the Perkins County meet on Friday, April 2nd. She broke the record of 44.76 set by Skylar Hadley of Loomis in 2018.

#3 - Noah Rau of Chase County set the All-Class and Class C discus record with his 205-07 mark at the Ogallala meet on Friday, April 2nd. He broke his previous All-Class record of 203-09 that was set at last year's State meet as well as the previous Class C record of 196-11 set by Derric Werner of Elkhorn Valley in 2002. Because Chase County moved from Class B in 2025 to Class C in 2026, Noah will soon have the unusual distinction of holding both the Class B (203-09 in 2025) and Class C (205-07 in 2026) State records. Fun fact A: The steel measuring tape used to measure Noah's throw was borrowed from the Cozad coach, who now carries it in case Chayden Hoffmaster (see #1 below) decides to break another record. Fun fact B: Ogallala also moved from Class B to Class C this year, which means Ogallala's Shaydyn Rasby, the current Class B record holder in the 300 hurdles at 43.45, has an opportunity to crack the Class C record of 43.29.

#2 - Brock Bailey of Dundy County Stratton threw the shot 63-04.25 at the Southern Valley invite on March 27, topping the Class D mark of 63-01.25 set by Steve Kriewald of North Loup-Scotia at the State meet in 2000.

#1 - Chayden Hoffmaster of Cozad posted a long jump of 24-05.50 leap at the UNK indoor meet on March 20. There was initial confusion about whether an indoor mark qualified for a State record, but Cozad does plan to submit the mark. The previous mark of 23-08.25 was set by Tyler Wullenwaber of Centennial in 2009. Chayden topped the previous record a second time, jumping 23-10.00 at Holdrege meet on March 27, but the wind reading for that jump was 2.4 m/s, just over the limit of 2.0 m/s.

As of Sunday, 4/12, none of the above are reflected as State records on the NSAA website at https://secure.nsaahome.org/nsaaforms/tr/staterecords.php. Check out our April 7 Nerdsletter if you'd like more information on how wind strength impacts State record certification.

Titan Classic 1600

We last mentioned two weeks ago but this is the big week for the Titan Classic at Papio South. There will be a marque girls' 1600 race on Thursday, April 16. As of today, the following girls are expected to be in this race:

Emily Hegge, Papio South, PB 4:55, 2025 Class A State XC champ
Avery Arens, Crofton, PB 5:00, 2025 Class D State XC champ
Brianna Reilly, Harrisburg (SD), PB 4:46, 2025 SD Class AA State XC champ
Hannah Genrich, Harrisburg (SD), PB 4:56
Kori McClain, North Platte, PB 5:12, 2025 Class A State XC 3rd place
Ashlyn Carter, Papio South, PB 5:10, 2025 Class A State XC 7th place
Emma Steffensen, Waverly, PB 5:07 and 2:10, 2025 Class B 800-meter champ
Maya Freyer, Omaha Marian, PB 5:15 and 11:01, Class A State XC 8th place

The girls' 1600 have been moved to later in the meet to be run under the lights. Competitors will be introduced one at a time, some of the stadium lights will be dimmed, and fans will be allowed to stand in lanes 5-8 on the homestretch and backstretch. Derek Fey, the College of St. Mary distance coach with a golden voice, will be the announcer for the race. The current best guess race time is 7:30-8:00 but the actual time will depend on the meet's final entries across all events. Don't be late!

For reference to State records, Crofton competes in Class C during the track season:

Class A: Stella Miner, Omaha Westside, 4:47.49, 2024

Class B: Aubree Worden, Scottsbluff, 4:50.06, 2011

Class C: Rylee Rice, Ainsworth, 5:05.25, 2017 (see Records section above)

South Dakota Class AA: Alea Hardie, O'Gorman, 4:45.33, 2022

Top performances

In addition to Avery Arens' outstanding times referenced above, here are a few other performances that caught our eye:

Siblings Brock and Kennedy Bailey of Dundy County Stratton competed at the K-State Relays on Friday and Saturday, bringing home three golds and a silver. Kennedy swept the weight events with throws of 45-02.50 and 148-08 while Brock won the shot with 60-05.25 and finished second in the discus with his 175-08. Both are top ranked in both events in Class D.
At a stormy Grand Island meet on Thursday, Evan Svoboda of Norfolk won the 100 (10.80) and 200 (21.02) and was a member of the winning 4x100 squad (42.76). His 200-meter mark is the fastest among all classes this season, and he's undefeated in the 100/200 in his three meets this season.
Abigael Spargo, a sophomore at Dundy County Stratton, took the season-lead in the 400 with her 56.10 on Tuesday. That time is just 0.16 seconds off the Class D record held by her sister Clara.
Speaking of the 400, Addison Garringer of Kearney won the 400 (56.98, ranked 2nd this year), and 200 (25.23, ranked 7th) at Friday's Kearney meet, and her 4x400 squad posted the second-fastest time of the season with their 4:01.35.
Mazie Stoklasa, a junior at Clarkson-Leigh, leapt 39-02.00 on Friday to take the All-Class lead in the triple jump. The Class C record is 40-05 set by Jaime Volkmer of Kearney Catholic in 1999.

Performance list

The spreadsheet is held together by hope and rubber bands, but our Nebraska high school rankings at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/rankings is still working as of press time. We list the top 15 performers by event for each Class plus the top 15 in the All-Class category. The spreadsheet also has State meet team projections based on the season-to-date marks.

If you're aware of an error or omission, please DM us or email jayslagle@hotmail.com. We are aware of two Nebraska Wesleyan athletes on the list; athletic.net thinks they're still in high school and there's not much we can do to fix that.

If you're looking for meet results, our website lists as many meet results as we can find at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/trackresults.

All-time Nebraska greats

Braden Lofquest won the 2023 Class A 800-meter State title for Gretna before he was re-assigned to the new Gretna East high school. He then won the 2024 Class B 800-meter title as a junior before sweeping the three Class B distance events as a senior. He signed with Duke and, as a freshman, is competing in meets an an unattached athlete. This past week he ran a 3:40.97 1500 at a home meet, and his time converts to a sub-4:00 mile. His performance led me to have an extended email discussion with Coach Brady Bonsall (UNK) and Coach Chris Gannon (Creighton), the two people I lean on when I need a lesson on Nebraska track and field history.

While York High/UNL runner David Adams posted a mile time in 2012 that converts to a faster 1500 time than Braden, Coach Gannon has placed Braden on the all-time performance for athletes who have competed for a Nebraska high school. With Coach Gannon's permission, I'm sharing his list here. It's headlined by at least two Olympians (Emily Sisson and Alice Schmidt) and a 10-time All-American (Angee Henry). I'm too lazy to go through the list but please reach out if you're aware of other Olympians on the list.

In the course of our email discussion, we realized that Sidney grad and current UNL athlete Karsyn Leeling became the top high jumper in Nebraska history when she cleared 6-02.25 (1.89m) in the high jump this past week at the University of Georgia. Even better, that jump now has her ranked first in the NCAA this season.

If you're aware of an error or omission is Coach Gannon's list of top performances from a Nebraska high school athlete, please let us know.

Middle School Mondays

We're trying to resurrect Middle School Monday on our X and Facebook accounts where we ask our followers to give shout-outs to middle school athletes who had a great performance in the prior week. Athletic.net provides a ranking of the top twenty-five athletes in each event at https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/rankings/list/171166/m for boys and https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/rankings/list/171166/f for girls. Those rankings are important because they determine who qualifies for the Nebraska Championship Meet held on Saturday, May 16 in Gothenburg. You can find out more information about the Gothenburg meet at https://nebraskachampionshipmeet.com/.

Given the limited number of spots available for the Gothenburg meet - a meet which has incredible performances every year - a second end-of-season meet is also held in Gretna. I'll provide details about the Gretna meet in a future Nerdsletter.

NSAA legislation

The NSAA is a member-driven organization so schools are encouraged to submit proposals when they want to change rules for any of the activities overseen by the NSAA.

At the NSAA's representative assembly last week, a legislative proposal to allow combined boys/girls practice in cross country and T&F was approved. The majority of Class B-D schools were probably violating the rule against having boys and girls practice together, in part because so few coaches were aware that the rule existed.
At the same NSAA meeting, a proposal was approved to allow boys and girls to compete in the same race at a non-varsity meet. For example, in small meets it simply makes sense for boys and girls 4x800 teams to compete at the same time.
A proposal I made several years ago was formally submitted by Grand Island Northwest and North Platte for this legislative season. Because some cross country Districts are dominated by teams who take many of the 15 individual berths at State, the proposals suggested that at least five (GINW) or eight (North Platte) individuals not on qualifying teams be advanced to the State meet. During the January District meetings, both proposals were approved by Districts 1, 4, 5 and 6. The two proposals failed in District 3 (including a whopping 5 yea's, 44 no's for the North Platte proposal). For District 2, which includes the Omaha area, there was 'no action' on either proposal. Given that the many of the OPS cross country teams are struggling with depth and their athletes could benefit from such a proposal, the 'no action' on the proposals is befuddling. Interestingly, District 2 chose to take 'no action' on 15 of the 47 legislative proposals, which counts as a 'no' vote. None of the other five Districts had a 'no action' result on any of the 47 proposals. Five of the six Districts must vote in favor or a proposal for it to advance to the representative assembly. As an advocate for the sport of cross country, I say 'phooey on you' to District 2 for not only not supporting the proposals, but 'double phooey on you' for not even voting on them.

Photos

The Nerd team has already posted photos albums for more than 40 track meets at https://www.facebook.com/PrepRunningNerd/photos_albums. If you're looking for a list of albums in chronological order, check out our website at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/2022. We receive several DM's each week asking us to label the Facebook albums; we do label every one of them, but we can't control how Facebook presents the pictures to you.

Below are examples of the photos we've posted since the last Nerdsletter. Seriously folks, the Nerds have been killing it this season.

OPS Bluestem JH, 4/8 (Nerd Sr, who got the same skeptical look from the meet director)

Omaha Benson, 4/10 (Nerd Sr, includes large Unified album)

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First published at www.preprunningnerd.com by Jay Slagle on April 14, 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.