Nerdsletter 4/9/25

Contributor: The Nerd

Performance list launched

As we've done in prior T&F seasons, we have now launched our performance database that lists the top 15 performances by Class plus an All-Class performance list. You can find it under '2025 track' on our website at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/rankings. A few caveats:

We know the database isn't complete but we've been receiving numerous requests to publish it. We have some paper-based meet results to enter and we're aware of a few athletic.net meets (e.g., the LNE Relays) that aren't feeding into our spreadsheet. If we've omitted a top-15 performance, send us a DM or email us at jayslagle@hotmail.com and tell us the athlete name, mark, meet name and meet date. We have to manually enter these missing marks so give us a week to add them.
We will update the spreadsheet twice a week; it does not automatically update when a new meet is uploaded to athletic.net.
We're pulling from databases we created but it's possible we've got a school misclassified, we've misspelled a name, or the mark isn't formatted correctly. Shoot us a DM or e-mail if you find an error.
We're only able to provide this information because last year Emma Smith, a Grand Island native now studying at Northwestern, helped us fix a few fatal flaws in our spreadsheet. She's a beast.

As a reminder, we're all volunteers and we're doing this on the fly, so don't be surprised if you see an error. Just let us know and we'll try to fix it.

Could you lend us a vote?

The all-volunteer Nerd team has been nominated for an OSCA! The Omaha Sports Commission Awards include an honor for the Sports Media Person of the Year, and voting runs from April 7 to April 21. If you appreciate the work we do for Nebraska high school XC and T&F, please consider voting for us at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScjJUlhcTOJsiO5DY7CE1U20SQOQeGApVtgaw1FGswpBNU5tA/viewform. The other nine categories are far more interesting than the media one, so you'll get a chance to vote for those categories too. Of interest: Omaha Westside alum Stella Miner has been nominated for female athlete of the year.

On the record

We got our first State record of the season last Thursday when Braden Lofquest of Gretna East broke the Class B and All-Class 1600 record by running a 4:06.80. He broke his own Class B mark of 4:12.11 as well as Juan Gonzalez's all-Class record of 4:08.61.

Unlike collegiate meets where the top runners can congregate at big indoor meets like Boston University and outdoor meets like Stanford, Nebraska high school athletes mostly have to hope that their meet schedule lines up with the schedule of other high performers. Such was the case last Thursday when both Gretna East and Omaha Skutt competed at the Bellevue East meet.

A few weeks prior to the meet, a plan was hatched for Skutt's Cody Rice to go through 800 at 2:00, after which Lofquest and Skutt's Tommy Rice would then work together for a potential State record. Roughly 90 minutes after Cody Rice ran a 4x800 leg in 1:57, he sailed through the first 800 meters of the 1600 right at two minutes before moving to lane 2 to let Tommy and Braden pass him. Braden had sat behind Cody for the first 450-500 meters, and then Tommy moved ahead of Braden until Braden kicked with 1300 meters to go. Tommy finished in 4:14.13, a PR and faster than the Class B State record he briefly held last spring.

As interesting as the race was, I was left wanting more. From my vantage point, Lofquest seemed to have a lot left in the tank in the final 400, and I wonder if both he and Rice could have run faster times if Lofquest had taken the lead at 1000 meters rather than utilizing a sit-and-kick approach. Keep in mind, I'm giving that opinion as someone with a lifetime best of 4:53, so what do I know? Regardless, I expect the All-Class record to be broken again this season.

Last week we listed six State records that we considered to be in peril. The All-Class 1600 was one of the six listed, and we were pretty sure that Juan Gonzalez would be the one to break it. After running a 4:12 last week in Columbus, Juan will be racing the 3200 this week at the Arcadia Invite in California. Given the number of sub-9:00 athletes expected at Arcadia, my guess is that Juan trained through the Columbus meet so he'd be ready for a breakout race this week in California.

JH kids rock

The last two Mondays we've asked our followers on X and Facebook to give a shout out to a junior high athlete who had a great performance - a PR, a school record or anything else - in the prior week. We're still waiting for our first response, but we're going to try to make a habit of (a) asking you to shout out a junior high track athlete and (b) scouring meet results to find a few of our own. Here's what we found last week in the limited online results:

Parker Mentzer, North Platte, 18-11 LJ
GI Westridge boys 4x400, 4:03.6
Maximus Mora, GI Trinity, 53.6 400
Edie Sutton, Mary Our Queen, 13.06 100, 26.50 200
Peter Lickteig, St. Marg Mary, 4:54 1600

Please consider responding to our Middle School Monday posts starting next week.

Commitments

Two weeks ago we asked for you to send in Class of 2025 XC and T&F commitments so we can build a list as we have in previous years. We only received about ten responses. Please DM or email us at jayslagle@hotmail.com so we can add you or your athlete to the list. College coaches are also welcome to send us their commitment lists.

Photos

Despite the tough weather last week, the Nerds did another great job of capturing images. On our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/PrepRunningNerd/photos_albums, we have posted the following albums from last week: Boone Central, Cedar Catholic, Wilber-Clatonia, a limited selection from Omaha North 9/10, Bellevue East, Thayer Central, LPS Open, Plainview, Platteview, Columbus, Creighton Prep, USD collegiate and Bayard. Here is a sampling of our photos:

Wilber-Clatonia (Sun Nerd on a non-sunny day)

Summer camps

We're going to start listing summer camps now because we're too tired in late May to do it. Here are a few that have crossed our desk:

Eyes Up camp at Creighton - Coach Gannon offers two two-day camps in July. Details at https://www.bluejayrunningcamps.com/nextlevel.
Cozad cross country camp - Cozad offers a five-hour camp on Tuesday, July 15. Speakers include college coaches Matt Beisel (Concordia), Brad Jenny (Doane) and Ryan Mahoney (Hastings). Click here for the flier.

Summer races

I'm also going to periodically list races that have been sent to me. The Omaha Running Club and Lincoln Track Club are better resources for races in Omaha and Lincoln, but I got tired of saying that we don't give information on road races.

I'm hoping to be healthy and near Valentine on Saturday, June 7th for the Sandhills Marathon. I wrote about the marathon at https://www.preprunningnerd.com/post/sandhillsmarathon after I ran it last year. It's a great race, particularly if you want to get away from the crowds.
The non-profit Abide organization is hosting a 5k in Omaha on Saturday, June 14 to benefit inner-city disadvantaged kids, particularly those in the African American community. You can find more details at https://www.abideomaha.org/better-together-5k.
Former Omaha North XC coach Mark Gudgel is launching a race in Valentine on August 2 with distances from one mile to fifty-two kilometers, and the marathon will be a Boston qualifier. The majority of the course is along the Cowboy Trail and you can even sign up a 7-person team for the 5k. Go to https://valentinemarathon.com/ for more information.

This and that

A few results from last weekend's Stanford Invite caught our eye. Carson Noecker (SDSU, Cedar Catholic) ran a 29:40 10k, Brianna Rinn (Utah, LSW) ran a 4:16.55 1500, and Berlyn Schutz (UNL, Lincoln East) ran a 15:57 5k.
You don't see a lot of epic fails in distance running... unless the steeplechase is being offered. And when a disaster inevitably happens, the fallen athlete will not hesitate to share the news, because we runners traffic in dark humor. Last Friday a fearless athlete from a Nebraska college caught her spike just before the first water barrier, causing her to crash headfirst into the dry side of the barrier. I was looking at her from the water side of the barrier, and she just disappeared from my camera view finder. I later saw a video of the incident, which the athlete has proudly posted on her TikTok, and the video is gruesome. Let me say this: someone should hire this young lady when she graduates because she is as tough as nails.
Thanks to donations from the community, a large chunk of the Fremont varsity boys team plus hurdler Morgan Sintek will be heading to California this weekend to compete in the West Coast Classic in Long Beach or the Arcadia Invite in Arcadia. As noted above, Juan Gonzalez will be running the 3200 at Arcadia, and he'll join Noah Miller, Jase Laday and Mason Nau in racing the 4x1600 at Arcadia.
A friend ran the Earlybird Run on Saturday so I peeked at the results. Over 1400 folks raced 10 miles on a bitterly cold day, and sixteen men broke the one-hour mark. The top 25 finishers include a large number of Nebraska HS and college alums who are still going strong. Elite ultramarathoner Kaci Lickteig stepped down in distance and knocked out a 1:03:22. You can find the results at https://results.truetimeracing.com/results.aspx?CId=16535&RId=1438.

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First published at www.preprunningnerd.com by Jay Slagle on April 9, 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.