Sports

A pair of Sandy Creek standouts on the football field lead Clay County’s post-season fall sports honors this year, as juniors Ethan Shaw and Connor Rempe were both honored by the Omaha World-Herald as first-team Class D-1 All-State first-team selections by the daily newspaper.

Shaw was tabbed as a firstteam all-state linebacker, while Rempe landed on the first team as an all-state defensive back.

The duo led a long list of honors by the 12-1 Cougars, who finished third in the final post-season polls in Class D-1, behind Stanton and EMF.

Earning Class D-1 honorable mention honors for Sandy Creek’s football team were Jack Watts, Kaeden Schmidt, Alston Clark, and Wes Biltoft.

Sutton had two players finish with honorable mention honors, as well, with juniors Weston Ohrt and Gabe Gwennap earning honors in Class D-1.

The Sutton Mustangs’ wrestling team, powered by six individual medalists opened the 2023-24 mat season with a bang, wrapping up action at the Harvard Invitational in a two-way tie for second place, as a team, with the Warcats of Red Cloud/Blue Hill, both teams tallied 113 team points to trail team champion, Johnson County Central, who captured team gold with 120.5 team points.

RUNNER-UP FINISHES

The Mustangs three lightweight wrestlers, Korey Poppe, Lane Shore, and Connor Hinrichs led individually, as all three gained runner-up finishes in their respective weight classes.

Poppe’s run in the 113-pound class gained him four wins in five matches. Poppe opened with four straight pinfall wins, pinning Josh Russel of Alma in 41 seconds, Trevin Smith of Red Cloud/ Blue Hill in 20 seconds, Trevin Huskey of Johnson County Central in 46 seconds, and Chanze Mattison of Shelton in just nine seconds.

Sandy Creek went 2-0 during the opening week of the 2023-24 basketball season with two hard-fought victories over both Wood River and David City.

In the first game of the season, against the Eagles Nov. 30, the Cougars came out on top 44-37 with a healthy amount of scoring from sophomore Oliver Oglesby, as he would end the night with 17 points going 6-8 from the floor (75%).

Then, a little help from the free throw line as the Cougars ended the night going 11 for 16 (69%).

The Cougars also had a strong night rebounding with three offensive rebounds and then 23 defensive rebounds, with Jack Clark always finding the basketball on the rebound, as he would end the night with 11 total rebounds to record a double-double, as he also added 12 points in the win.

Coming off their 52-39 Southern Nebraska Conference win over Superior, Nov. 30, the Sutton Fillies looked to add to their early season winning ways Saturday, Dec. 2, when the Freeman Falcons invaded the Sutton Dome for a matinee performance in front of the Fillies home crowd.

Sutton’s winning ways, in the end, continued, as a steady offensive surge, combined with 17 Freeman turnovers led the Fillies to a 2-0 start with a 39-32 victory to gain their first non-conference win of the 2023-24 season.

First-half action produced a 20-15 halftime lead, with the Fillies scoring 10 points in each of the first two quarters.

The two teams battled close throughout the second half, with Sutton holding the scoring edge in the third and fourth quarters, outscoring the Falcons 19-17 to secure the seven-point victory.

Junior Jacee Haight paced the Sutton offense with 13 points, while sophomore Kyla Griess and senior Reagan Robinson both hit for eight points.

Alivia Huxoll, a 2023 graduate of Sutton High School, and the daughter of Edd and Erica Huxoll, of Sutton, will be joining her teammates on the Metropolitan State University volleyball team when they open play in the 2023 NCAA Division II national volleyball tournament, entering the tournament as the sixth-seed in the South Central Regional tournament, played in Canyon TX on Thursday, Nov. 30.

Huxoll and the 26-6 Roadrunners will take on Texas A&M-Kingsville (2110) in the opening round of the tournament.

Huxoll, who is majoring in business and sports marketing, had a strong start to her young career with the Roadrunners. In 12 matches, and 22 sets, Huxoll collected 17 kills, five blocks and seven digs coming in off the bench. She had a season- high five kills in a win over Chadron State, Sept. 16.

Wrestling is a word that in Logan Searle’s dictionary belongs on the front page of any dictionary in circulation. He breathes wrestling, bleeds wrestling, and sleeps wrestling, and for those that know him well, know that he demands respect for the sport that he loves deeply.

Searle, who after four years as ‘the master builder” of Liberty North High School’s wrestling program in the suburbs of Kansas City, MO, along with his wife, Kami made the decision that it was time to get out of the city and get back to their roots, and support small town America. This past summer they returned home, moving back to Edgar, where Searle took over the Industrial Arts program at Sandy Creek High School, and oh, by the way, stepped into the role of head wrestling program, which beginning this program, will no longer be under the South Central Unified District umbrella, and will in fact be the first Cougar Wrestling team since the late 1990s.

A 16-year veteran softball coach, Todd Mau, will be inducted into the Nebraska Softball Hall of Fame in a ceremony to be held Saturday, Dec. 2, in Hastings.

The induction ceremony, in which four other inductees will join Mau will be at the Lochland Country Club, with the banquet set to start at 6 p.m. at the Hastings club.

Joining Mau in the 2023 induction class are Gary Benson, Duane Cheney, Jeff Drahota, and Dennis Glover.

In nine letters of support for Mau’s induction, each letter had a common theme about Mau, “Coach Mau has always been a selfless, devoted and talented coach. Todd, an incredible player himself, hung up his own cleats to help us get ours dirty,” his youngest daughter, Kesean (Mau) Bundy shared.

The Harvard football team, in what many can call the toughest 6-Man football district in the state of Nebraska, has placed five players on the D6-3 All-District football team for their efforts during the 2023 season.

Led by senior Cody Fishler and junior Eduardo Perez, who were both named as a first-team selection, Fishler as a defensive back, and Perez as a kicker, by coaches in the D6-3 District, while senior Eric Villalbaso earned second team honors for his play as a defensive lineman for the 3-5 Cardinals this year.

Three other Cardinals were honored as honorable mention selections, including Lathem Schumm, Kyle Knueven, and Cohen Reutzel.

Josh Shaw, a 2022 graduate of Sandy Creek High School, and a Fairfield native was named as a third-team selection to the 2023 All-MIAA all-conference football team, as Shaw, and his Fort Hays State Tigers football team closed out the season with a 7-4 overall record, and a 6-4 conference record.

The 6-2, 285 offensive lineman for the Tigers, Shaw, according to the Tigers’s website “received his first All-MIAA pick on the offensive line. He started all 11 games at left guard in 2023, helping the team to 4,622 yards of total offense, averaging 420.2 per game. The Tigers ranked fifth in the MIAA in total offense.

He is the son of Brian and Julie Shaw of rural Fairfield.

As dominant as the Sandy Creek Cougars were on the football field, ending the 2023 season following their 12-point loss to Stanton, the Cougars continued their dominance in the postseason, as a total of 15 Cougars earned honors from coaches in the Class D1-8 District.

Sutton, who finished the year with a 3-6 record, after a first-round playoff loss to North Platte St. Pats, had eight players earn postseason honors by the district.

Sandy Creek’s players on the first team offense included: quarterback Ethan Shaw, receiver Connor Rempe, and offensive linemen, Jack Watts, Will Claycamp and Hudson Devlin.

Defensively, Cougars on the first team included: Kaeden Schmidt, as a defensive back, Alston Clark, as a linebacker, and Jacob Petr, as a defensive lineman.

Second team honors for the Cougars, offensively included Ben Sullivan as a running back, Logan Sanders as a receiver, Wes Biltoft as a linebacker, and Owen Oglesby, as a defensive lineman.