By Tony Chapman and Chris Basnett – For the Nebraska School Activities Association
The 67th NSAA boys state cross country championships and 47th girls edition take their place in the championship rotation on Friday, October 23 at the Kearney Country Club. Through district qualifying last Thursday, 859 individuals qualified with most runners a part of the 114 teams that advanced to the state meet.
In Classes A and B, there are 12 teams in both boys and girls races with individuals that also were in the top 15 at one of the four district meets advancing. For Class C, 15 teams qualified in five districts with the same rules for individual qualifiers advancing. Finally, Class D qualifies 18 teams in six districts. The Class D girls race will begin the championships this season when it starts the eight-race event at noon. (Full race schedule)
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New to cross country? Team scoring works just a little bit different in each class. In Class A, teams run seven runners and count the finishing place of the top five for the team score. This changes to six-count-four for classes B and C and then moves to five-count-three for Class D. Team ties are broken by the highest placing of the first non-counting team member. Individual medals are awarded to the top 15 finishers in each race.
Up-to-date championship information will be delivered via the NSAA Cross Country Championship HQ page with live results on athletic.net via Black Squirrel Timing.
Seward aims to finish dream season with first state championship
This season could not have gone any better for the Seward Bluejays.
They have won all but one competition. They have the state’s breakout star in senior Jackson Einspahr. And they are the favorites to win the Class B state cross country championship in Kearney.
Now comes the hard part: they have to go out and do it.
“Other teams are not going to be afraid of us,” Seward coach Kurt Holliday said. “We’ve got to be ready to run. We can’t let our guard down, otherwise we’re going to get beat.
“Class B boys is pretty stacked this year. There’s a lot of teams that could do what we did last year, so we have to be on our toes and be ready to race.”
The “last year” Holliday refers to is Seward’s second-place finish in Class B after entering the state meet ranked 10th. And really, it was the championship of the non-Lincoln Pius X Division, as the Thunderbolts trotted out one of the best teams in Class B history to win the state title going away.
The Bluejays brought back all but one runner from that team — Austin Koch, Cale Greisen, Lucas Zitek, Mason Luebbe and Mason Vest all returned after running at state in 2025.
And they added an ace in the hole.
Einspahr has been the story of the year in the Nebraska cross country world. He competed in the sport in junior high, but gave it up for football as a freshman and sophomore. As a junior, a stress fracture that required surgery kept him from doing anything. Then he showed up as a senior and started winning everything.
It started with Seward’s Charlie Thorell Invitational, where he took down Lincoln North Star’s J’Shawn Afuh, who was third in Class A last season, and led the Bluejays to the team title over the Gators. It continued at the Harold Scott Invitational in Lincoln, where he defeated last year’s Class A runner-up Aiden Gehring.
The son of Kregg Einspahr, the legendary track and cross country coach at Concordia University who also won six national titles as an athlete at the school, Jackson has given Seward the piece it was missing. The lone meet the Bluejays did not win this season came when Einspahr sat out the Mount Michael Benedictine race and Seward finished second to Norris by one point.
“This year it’s been really fun just knowing that we do have something special, with Jackson being out, and his little brother being a part of it too, and the rest of those guys coming back. It’s been a fun ride, that’s for sure,” Holliday said. “At times I get so busy with all the other things behind the scenes that sometimes it’s hard to enjoy, and I need to realize, man, this is going too quick. I need to enjoy it more.”
There will be plenty to enjoy should Seward finish the season off the way it hopes.
The Bluejays have never won a boys cross country championship. There have been three second-place finishes: last year, 2003, when the Bluejays entered as pre-meet favorites, and 1967. Seward has finished third five times. In one year, Holliday said, Seward came to Kearney as the state title favorite and finished eighth.
“We’ve never won a state championship, so that’s something kind of weighing on us too,” Holliday said while describing coming up short in previous seasons. “So we’ve seen the bad side of things too. We know what could happen. But (this is) a different team.”
Different because of Einspahr. Different because of the experience up and down the roster. Different because of the confidence built over a season of winning.
Now the Bluejays need to do it one more time. They will battle North Platte, which moved past Seward for the top spot in the most recent set of statewide coaches’ rankings. Pius X always looms as a threat. And the Seward runners might as well be wearing giant red and white targets on their blue and gold jerseys as the season-long story.
“I’m a big stats guy, so every week I have it all stripped out, how it’s looking, the competition, who we have to be ready for,” Holliday said. “But you’ve still got to go out and do it, so my guys know what to expect. They’ve seen it all on paper, and they know who the threats are, and they have to be ready to handle it because when the time comes, they’re going to have to beat them.”
Class B District Team Champions: Elkhorn, Lincoln Pius X, North Platte, Seward.
Other Team Qualifiers: Beatrice, Gretna, Gretna East, Hastings, Lexington, Norris, Northwest, Scottsbluff.
District Individual Champions: Carter Ribble (Beatrice), Samuel Robinson (Norris), Ethan Smith (Northwest), Jackson Einspahr (Seward).
CLASS A: After a stunning finish last season that saw Creighton Prep overtake heavy pre-meet favorite Lincoln North Star for the state championship, it is the Junior Jays that come to Kearney in 2026 as the pre-race pick to repeat.
Creighton Prep will bring three of its top six runners from last year’s team back to the Kearney Country Club after taking the top three and five of the top eight individual places at the A-1 district meet. Sophomore Peter Lickteig, the A-1 district champion, finished 23rd at last year’s state meet.
The final results could very well mirror last season’s: Creighton Prep does not have the fastest runner, or maybe even a runner that will finish in the top five. But the Junior Jays’ depth will be difficult for the opposition to overcome.
Papillion-LaVista South, Fremont, and Lincoln North Star present Prep’s top challengers, while Norfolk senior Liam Gonzalez, Papio South junior Aiden Gehring, and North Star senior J’Shawn Afuh will contend for individual honors. Those three went 1-2-3 at the A-4 district meet, and finished 2-3-4 at last year’s state meet.
District Team Champions: Fremont, Millard West, Omaha Creighton Prep, Papillion-LaVista South.
Other Team Qualifiers: Elkhorn North, Elkhorn South, Kearney, Lincoln East, Lincoln High, Lincoln North Star, Millard North, Omaha Westside.
District Individual Champions: Peter Lickteig (Creighton Prep), Jasper Semrad (Fremont), Elijah Bickley (Millard West), Liam Gonzalez (Norfolk).
CLASS C: Two-time defending champion Trevin Opp is back with his Lincoln Christian teammates for one final run.
Opp, a senior, won last year’s Class C race in 15:59 while leading the Crusaders to their first boys cross country state championship. Christian is the favorite again this year, sweeping the top four spots at the C-1 district meet while all six runners finished in the top seven. Holdrege and Gothenburg are the top contenders to break the Crusaders’ stranglehold on the top spot.
However, the individual competition figures to be fierce; last year’s top four finishers all return this year in Opp, Holdrege’s Samuel McQuistan, and the Gothenburg duo of Bryson Neels and Tyler Hetz. If you are looking for the most exciting finish of the day, Class C boys could well be the race to watch.
District Team Champions: Aurora, Holdrege, Lincoln Christian, Mount Michael Benedictine, Norfolk Catholic.
Other Team Qualifiers: Fort Calhoun, Gothenburg, Milford, Minden, O’Neill, Plattsmouth, Sidney, Syracuse, Wayne, Yutan.
District Individual Champions: Grayson Oswald (Aurora), Samuel McQuistan (Holdrege)
Trevin Opp (Lincoln Christian), Andrew Kastl (Norfolk Catholic), Esten Shane Kohl (Platteview).
CLASS D: A surprise winner last season, Doniphan-Trumbull returns as a slight favorite in what should be one of the most competitive team competitions of the day.
The Cardinals, with defending individual champion Kaser Johnson, will battle with Tri County and Cornerstone Christian for the gold trophy after those squads took the top three spots last season while combining for seven of the top 15 individual finishers. All but one of those seven runners returns in 2026.
Johnson will compete with Einspahr and a handful of Class A runners for the day’s fastest time. However, keep an eye on the runners further back in the pack; they will likely decide the team race.
District Team Champions: Axtell, Cornerstone Christian, Doniphan-Trumbull, Hemingford, Ord, Ponca.
Other Team Qualifiers: Amherst, Arcadia/Loup City, Bloomfield-Wausa, Creighton, East Butler, Gordon-Rushville, Homer, McCool Junction, Nebraska Christian, Perkins County, Shelton, Tri County.
District Individual Champions: Dutch Miller (Arcadia/Loup City), Ty Freeman (Bloomfield-Wausa), Tobin Klaassen (Cornerstone Christian), Kaser Johnson (Doniphan-Trumbull), Colton Ham (North Platte St. Pat’s), Yanathan Perez (Wood River).
Deja vu: Hegge, Arens headline deep girls fields
Last year, Papio South’s Emily Hegge and Crofton’s Avery Arens were freshman phenoms chasing an all-time record at the state cross championships. And, while this is not a copy-paste preview from 2025, it very well could be.
Hegge and Arens lead a growing pack of elite cross country runners in Nebraska. And they are only sophomores. Maybe this preview will get written two more times.
To the matter at hand, Arens broke Elli Dahl’s 2021 course record last year in the first race of the day in 17:29.0, winning Class D by two minutes. In the Class B race, Omaha Duchesne’s CeCe Kramper also bettered Dahl’s mark in 17:55.7. However, Kramper will not run this year as she nurses a foot injury.
As the day warmed up in the last race, Hegge won Class A in 18:24.5. It was one of the greatest days in state history for girls cross country.
Two more girls – adding Omaha Marian’s Maya Freyer and Papio South’s Ashlyn Carter – have added themselves to the sub-18:00 list this fall. The talent is as deep as Papio South coach Jeremy Haselhorst can remember.
“We have had some incredibly talented kids and I don’t want to take anything away from previous runners,” Haselhorst said. “But, the depth is new and we have had girls push the boundaries over these last couple of years and that opens up the belief in the kids that they have now.
“Like when Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile for the first time. We aren’t that far removed from a Nebraska girl breaking 18:00 for the first time. You just have so many more girls who are knocking on the door of that mark.”
It leads to a dreamer’s dream of cross country being a single class where all the talent can go against each other in one race to see how it shakes out. In a head-to-head this year at the Fremont Twilight, Hegge topped Arens by seven seconds (17:27.4 to 17:34.5). Hegge has also raced Class B’s top runner – Hastings’ Sophia Reynolds – at the Harold Scott Invite in Lincoln.
They were races that Haselhorst and Crofton coach Mickey Doerr said make all the runners better, but they also build personal friendships.
“The girls on our team love cross country,” Haselhorst said. “We have seen Avery and Sophia even though they are in different classes. Our kids just respect kids who are good at what they do. The challenge for us is we are getting ready to race on a day like Friday and we can’t be as big of fans as we want to.”
It is a bit different for Doerr and Arens, who will be out in race one.
“That was such a fun race,” Doerr noted of the Fremont Twilight event. “It was back-and-forth, back-and-forth between them the whole race. We have girls who are friends with other kids from across the state. It makes it so much fun.
“The state meet is a celebration of the sport in general and it’s unique that kids from Crofton and Papillion-LaVista can be out there cheering for each other.”
While Arens is out early, the girls Class A field will be getting ready for what could be a down-to-the-wire battle. While Haselhorst believes that Marian – the defending champion – may be the clear favorite, he thinks up to five teams could win the team trophy.
They include the other three district champions – Millard West, Elkhorn North (the 2025 Class B champions) and Papio South – and Haselhorst also said Lincoln Southwest, last year’s runner-up, can also factor in the team race.
“It usually comes down to the fourth and fifth runners,” the Titan mentor said. “I feel like in cross county all the No. 1 and No. 2 runners kind of get that top billing but when they have an off day, it only usually costs you one or two points. But if your four or five runner has an off day that can be 20 or 30 points on your team score.
“And, you can even throw the number six or seven runners into the mix because they can push other teams scoring runners. That’s fun, it’s exciting.”
At the A-1 district meet, Marian had the top three individuals – Louise Walker and Harper Cowles joined Freyer on the top of the medals – and placed six runners in the top 13 in the individual race. Elkhorn North has three-time Class B medalist Leah Robinson – a new Wichita State commit – leading the way after a district title while Millard West freshman Madison Scott was the other district champion.
Haselhorst believes most all of the Class A coaches might have the same strategy for their teams – do what you have done all year.
“We want to be in the place where we have earned the right that the good version of us, it is good enough,” he said. “We just want to go to state where the good version of us is in the mix. And, I think a lot of the other teams feel that way, too. Just go be you. You get to be a version of you that you have been all year.
“And Marian can say the same thing. And Millard West can say the same thing. And Elkhorn North can say the same thing and so could Lincoln Southwest.”
Class A District Team Champions: Elkhorn North, Millard West, Omaha Marian, Papillion-LaVista South.
Other Team Qualifiers: Bennington, Elkhorn South, Kearney, Lincoln East, Lincoln Southwest, Norfolk, Omaha Westside, Papillion-LaVista.
District Individual Champions: Leah Robinson (Elkhorn North), Madison Scott (Millard West), Maya Freyer (Omaha Marian), Emily Hegge (Papillion-LaVista South).
CLASS B: There will be two new champions in Class B this year as the Elkhorn North girls – now a title contender in Class A – and Omaha Duchesne’s Kramper will not compete in this year’s race. Kramper is recovering from a foot injury and ran just twice early this season.
It leaves a group of four teams that could vie for the team title that includes all four district champions. Top-ranked Lincoln Pius X, second-ranked Seward along with North Platte and Gretna. The Dragons and Bolts had district champs in Lucy Zabloudil and Malia Woolley.
Amazingly, all three of Lincoln Pius, Seward and North Platte could be looking for boy-girl double podium team finishes in Kearney.
“We’re hoping for the same thing (as the boys),” Seward’s Holliday said. “I always say a trophy is a big deal. You get the top two, that’s something special. You get to go up on the podium, that’s a big deal. If you don’t win, but you get that trophy, that’s still a big deal, and that’s always been our first goal.
“Both (teams) winning the conference, both winning the district. We’ve had a great end of our season. It’s just now we’ve got to do it one more time and do what we’ve been doing this whole last month of the season, and I feel like we’ll be happy if we just do that.”
After finishing second to Kramper last fall, Hastings’ Reynolds could be the individual favorite. The recent South Dakota commit, who won the 1,600 and 3,200 and last spring’s state track meet, has only been beaten by Papio South’s Hegge at the Harold Scott Invitational in Lincoln. She ran a personal best 18:22.5 at the district race last week.
District Team Champions: Gretna, Lincoln Pius X, North Platte, Seward.
Other Team Qualifiers: Elkhorn, Gering, Lexington, Norris, Northwest, Omaha Duchesne, Omaha Skutt Catholic, Scottsbluff.
District Individual Champions: Lucy Zabloudil (Gretna), Sophia Reynolds (Hastings), Malia Woolley (Lincoln Pius X), Rinlee Blomstedt (McCook).
CLASS C: Rivalries from across the state have seemingly developed in the Class C girls team race over the past few years. In 2024, Auburn edged Scotus Central Catholic 64-68 for the team title with Gothenburg (70) and Minden (76) close behind.
In 2025, Chase County was a surprise champion to some with 67 points – 10 ahead of Adams Central and 14 ahead of Scotus – with Auburn and Gothenburg close behind.
All of these teams will play a key role in the 2026 race as well on Friday afternoon. Top-ranked Adams Central just moved to the top of the coaches poll rankings after districts when Gothenburg edged Chase County – the previous No. 1 – for the district title. The Longhorns, however, won the bigger UNK High School Invitational earlier in the year.
District champions Auburn and Wayne – with second-ranked Tayla Hurner – could also play into the team race which could be the closest of the day from teams 1-6.
The individual race should feature just as much drama when, amazingly, 18 runners in the race will have won a medal at a previous state meet. Defending champion Scout Bell of Gothenburg returns and three runners – Emma Williams (North Bend Central), Emilyn Kavan (Scotus Central Catholic) and Mallory Robbins (Plattsmouth) – will chase a fourth career medal.
District Team Champions: Adams Central, Auburn, Gothenburg, Fort Calhoun, Wayne.
Other Team Qualifiers: Arlington, Chase County, Kearney Catholic, Lincoln Christian, Norfolk Catholic, Milford, Minden, Plattsmouth, Scotus Central Catholic, Yutan.
District Individual Champions: Neva Bauer (Arlington), Amelia Buhlke (Central City), Scout Bell (Gothenburg), Mallory Robbins (Plattsmouth), Tayla Hurner (Wayne).
CLASS D: Last year’s opening race of the day had as much drama as any when McCool Junction edged favorite Crofton by one point in the team race, after Crofton’s Arens had beat the field by nearly two minutes in the individual race.
Both teams are back this year after district championships and have been ranked 1-2 by the class coaches all season long. Doerr feels like the makings of another great team race are present for Friday.
“We have very little thought of revenge, McCool Junction is very good,” Doerr said, “but we are more worried about just being the best we can be. Hopefully us being our best makes us the best, but if it doesn’t and it goes to McCool Junction or Nebraska Christian that’s okay.”
Besides Arens, the sister act of Meredith and Cecila Wortman have led the way for the Warriors this fall. Meredith was second at the D-1 district meet and Cecilia was fifth. But, the Warriors will face an imposing field.
McCool Junction will bring two two-time medalists – Kayleigh Betka (2024 champion) and Leah Dawson – to the field. Three other runners Delani Runnels (Niobrara/Verdigre), Lily Daly (Hastings St. Cecilia) and Mazzy Kuchar (Elkhorn Valley) are also two-time medalists. The race will feature 11 runners that have previously medaled at state.
Doerr said Arens is ready to go after sitting out an early season race in Norfolk with a minor hamstring injury. She was only beaten by Hegge in Nebraska and finished seventh in the prestigious Augustana Twilight race in early September.
“We rested Avery at Norfolk just out of precaution,” Doerr said. “We had some concerns about her downhill running, but she wanted to compete. We haven’t really worried about it since. She’s been really consistent and is learning how to recover well, too, which is part of the learning curve for a young runner.”
District Team Champions: Amherst, Crofton, McCool Junction, Nebraska Christian, Ord, Perkins County.
Other Team Qualifiers: Ainsworth, Arapahoe, Aquinas Catholic, Centennial, Elkhorn Valley, Gordon-Rushville, Hastings St. Cecilia, Hemingford, Hi-Line, Laurel-Concord-Coleridge, South Loup (Callaway/Arnold), Stanton.
District Individual Champions: Aysha Neal (Alma), Avery Arens (Crofton), Leah Dawson (McCool Junction), McKinley Mankin (Nebraska Christian), Madison Potts (Perkins County), Delani Runnels (Niobrara/Verdigre).
Tony Chapman is a freelance writer based in Grand Island. He has written for multiple Nebraska daily and weekly newspapers. His weekly Harvest Sports Newsletter covers a wide variety of Nebraska prep sports.
Chris Basnett is a freelance writer based in Lincoln. He has covered prep and college sports for more than 20 years and most recently was the assistant sports editor at the Lincoln Journal Star. He currently provides content for the Harvest Sports Newsletter.
