Nerdsletter 5/1/25

Contributor: The Nerd

Nerd HQ is in shambles

Our performance database at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/rankings had a mid-week glitch thanks to a programming change by athletic.net. Nerd Junior is doing his best impersonation of a coding geek to adjust to it but it may take a few days.

We're also a day late on the Nerdsletter because, well, Nerd Senior was a bit burned out earlier this week. For that reason, this is going to be a short Nerdsletter.

Is four days the right number for State?

It's been five years since the COVID outbreak. Mandatory vaccinations have gone away. Most of us aren't wearing masks. Attendance restrictions have been removed from all venues. Is the four-day State track meet all that remains from the COVID era?

After the NSAA announced in late 2021 that the post-COVID four-day State meet was here to stay, I started writing an article that has been sitting in my drafts folder for three years. I finally posted the article this week at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/post/state4days. I encourage you to read the article and then give us your thoughts via a reply to my X/Facebook post, a DM or by e-mail at jayslagle@hotmail.com. I'll summarize feedback in a future Nerdsletter.

Record watch

With less-than-ideal weather for much of last week, we only saw one new State record. Here's the run-down for the season:

#11 Ike Ackerman of Omaha Central broke his own Class A shot put record on Friday, April 25, throwing 64-07.25 at the Dennis Smith meet in Papillion. His previous record lasted seven days (see #4 below).

#10 The Dundy County Stratton boys 4x100 squad ran 42.99 at the Chase County Invite on 4/22/25, breaking the record of 43.59 set by Twin Loup in 2012. Members of the record-breaking squad: Kevin Garcia Guzman, Blaine Aldridge, Ethan Latta and Laken Wissink.

#9 Clara Spargo of Dundy County Stratton took ownership of another Class D sprint record after she ran a 12.24 100 (wind +1.8 m/s) in the prelims at the Chase County meet on Tuesday, 4/22. That broke the record of 12.30 set in 2024 by Adi Hunt of Southern Valley.

#8 The West Holt boys 4x400 team of Drake Nemetz, Andrew Rentschler, Lincoln Konrad and Brody Galyen recorded a 3:18.75 mark at the KU Relays on April 19, breaking the Class C record of 3:21.17 set by Chase County in 2024.

#7 The West Holt girls 4x400 team of Pavan Larson, Hollynn Konrad, London Konrad and Ainsley Galyen ran 3:58.52 on April 19 at the KU Relays to break the Class C record of 4:00.79 that they set in 2024 and tied the night before.

#6 The West Holt girls 4x400 team of Pavan Larson, Hollynn Konrad, London Konrad and Ainsley Galyen ran 4:00.79 on April 18 at the KU Relays to tie the Class C record set by the West Holt squad of Pavan Larson, Taylor Walnofer, London Konrad and Ainsley Galyen.

#5 Charlie Thorne of Lincoln Southeast ran a 36.96 300h at the Omaha Central meet on April 18, breaking the All-Class record of 37.29 set by Aaron Brandt of Bishop Neumann in 2006 and the Class A record of 37.36 set by Jeremy Buckner of Grand Island in 1991.

#4 Ike Ackerman of Omaha Central recorded a shot put of 65-04 at the Omaha Central meet on April 18 to break Larry Station's school and Class A shot put record of 64-09.5.

#3 Clara Spargo of Dundy County Stratton ran a 24.86 200 (-1.8 m/s) on Saturday, April 12 at Cambridge, breaking the oldest Class D record on the books. Karol McKenzie of Elwood had the previous record, running 25.20 in 1975. That marked Clara's second State record; she set the current Class D 400 record of 56.74 at the 2024 State meet. (Due to #9 above, Clara now holds all three Class D sprint records.)

#2 Austin Carrera of Hastings broke the Class B 3200 record on Friday, April 11 at Waverly, running 9:01.62. The previous record of 9:08.10 was set by Riley Boonstra of Norris at the 2024 State meet.

#1 Braden Lofquest of Gretna East broke the Class B and All-Class 1600 record on April 3 at Bellevue West, running 4:06.80. Braden held the previous Class B record at 4:12.11 from 5/1/24; Juan Gonzalez of Fremont held the previous All-Class record after running 4:08.61 at State last May.

Junior high State

Most school-based sports in Nebraska don't have a junior high State championship but we're fortunate that both cross country and T&F do. The Nebraska Championship Meet is held each May in Gothenburg and falls on May 17th this year.

The meet's website at https://nebraskachampionshipmeet.com/ is a great source of information, including how to qualify. Here's the short answer: the meet offers spots to individuals ranked in the top 24 (and the top 16 relays) on athletic.net as of May 8th at 10:00 p.m. Coaches have until May 12th to accept the invitation on behalf of their athletes. After that point, the meet officials start with the next best ranked athletes until they meet their 24/16 limit. The specifics of the qualifying/invitation process is at https://nebraskachampionshipmeet.com/info. If you have a qualifying athlete, we encourage you to coordinate with your junior high coach now so that they are prepared to claim your athlete's invitation.

Middle school Mondays

Each Monday we ask our social media followers to highlight great junior high performances from the prior week. That said, we're going to include one performance that happened this week: Evan Cameron of Columbus Scotus cleared 6-04 at Schuyler on Monday. That effort appears to be the top junior high HJ mark in the US this spring.

We found the following top marks from last week:

Kenton Kimble, Bluestem, 11.44 100

Peter Lickteig, St. Margaret Mary, 4:47.19 1600

Columbus Scotus 4x400 - 3:48.75

Garrett Haggadone, York, 46-06 shot

Ben Frame, Sutherland, 11-01 PV

Jagger Wiedel, St. Stephen the Martyr, 39-05.75 TJ

Edie Sutton, Mary Our Queen, 25.88 200

Kinley Ford, Alma, 2:27.70 800

Avery Arens, Crofton, 2:28.23 800, 5:21.43 1600

Grace Means, Kearney Horizon, 16.19 100h

GINW 4x100 - 52.14

Waverly 4x400 - 4:23.52

Lydia Cone, Pierce, 113-00 discus

Elli Payne, GINW, 9-07 PV

Bentley Masek, Columbus Lakeview, 35-02 TJ

Our followers contributed the following highlights:

Zeb Young, O'Neill - 5-10.25 HJ

Irving Middle School (LPS) boys 4x100 - 46.00

Kearney Catholic boys 4x100 - 46.66

Westridge boys 4x100 - 47.36

Jasper Semrad, Fremont - 4:59 1600, 2:15 800, 0:58 4x400 split

Deklan Duff (7th), Fremont - 56.67 400, 26.25 200, 12.46 100, 16-10.5 LJ

Reed Carey (7th), Lincoln Christian - 15,94 100h

Nate Svoboda, Holdrege - 2:14 800 (Friday) and 2:17 800 (Saturday)

Baylie Chapek, Bishop Neumann - 12.94 100

Tayla Hurner, Wayne - 2:29 800, 5:43 1600

Zoe Brooks, Walnut - 95-01 discus

Brooklyn Lopez, Walnut - 33.41 200h

Brooklyn Simmons, Palmyra - 53.36 300h

Commitments

We continue to update the Class of 2025 college commitment list at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/post/25commit. If you spot an error or omission, please DM us or send an e-mail to jayslagle@hotmail.com.

Nerd gear

From now until May 10th, we're offering free shipping on our Nerd gear at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/shop if you use the coupon code BRUCE at checkout. You might think this is fake news, but wearing a Nerd shirt is scientifically proven to make you 53% more attractive.

Sprints

Gerald Kubiak of Omaha has announced on Facebook that Tuesday night workouts for adults will resume on May 7th. This group runs a different interval workout each week, ranging from 400 repeats at Buena Vista high school to mile repeats at Elmwood Park. It's not just for elite runners; I would guess the mile repeat splits range from 5:00 to 13:00. Last year most sessions had 30-40 adults ranging in age from 19 to 75, and a few teenagers joined the summer sessions. Attendees must sign a liability waiver at their first session; all sessions are free. The best way to know about the workout and location is to follow Gerald on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/54907246073/user/698990567/.
Omaha Burke senior Sophia Scott is bypassing her final high school track season to focus on the javelin, the event in which she'll compete for Tennessee. So far this spring she's competed unattached in six college meets. She's won all six events.
Some athletes have undistinguished high school careers and then blossom in college, and that's certainly been the case for Richard Marcoux of Bellevue University. A 2020 graduate of Omaha North, Richard lost his senior year due to the COVID outbreak. In his junior season of high school, he registered PRs of 2:08/4:48/11:03. At Bellevue he's qualified for the NAIA national cross country championships the past two years, and last Thursday at Simpson he broke the 4:00 barrier in the 1500.
Last Thursday's Pierce/Wausa meet was a rainy affair, and Barrett Wilke's throwing shoes were soaked by the time he completed the shot put competition. The Class C shot put leader from Stanton opted to change into his dad's muck boots for the discus competition, where he threw 175-10, a PR by over eight feet. Are muck boots the new super shoes?

Photos

The Nerds had a busy week of shooting and editing. Since the last Nerdsletter, we've uploaded albums for the following meets: Wayne (4/15), Homer (4/17), Fremont (4/18), Lincoln JV, LCC, Superior, Gothenburg, Wakefield and Chase County (all 4/22), LCC junior high and St. Mary's (4/23), Schuyler and Simpson collegiate (4/24), Lexington and Harold Scott (4/25), and Hershey and Wesleyan collegiate (4/26).

As a reminder, over 95% of our photos are uploaded as albums with meet names but unfortunately we can't control how FB labels individual photos. You can see albums at https://facebook.com/PrepRunningNerd/photos_albums or a chronological listing of all 60+ meets we've shot this season at https://preprunningnerd.com/2022.

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First published at www.preprunningnerd.com by Jay Slagle on May 1, 2025. 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.