Sports

Sandy Creek remained perfect on the year, as they took on the Maxwell Wildcats in the opening round of the Class D-1 state football playoffs, Thursday, Oct. 19, defeating the Wildcats 62-22 in front of the Cougars home fans.

The last time the Cougars hosted a playoff game was in 2011 when they faced the Gothenburg Swedes, when current head coach, Andrew Kuta was a junior. The Cougars, in that 2011 game, fell to the Swedes 33-30, in overtime.

The last time the Cougars won a playoff at home was back in 2003 when the Cougars defeated East Butler, 26-14. In 2003, the Cougars won two of three playoff games, opening with a 54-28 thrashing of Doniphan-Trumbull in the first round, followed by a win over East Butler, before Lawrence-Nelson ended the Cougars run with a 21-14 overtime win, which avenged a 2114 Cougar win over the Raiders in the regular season of 2003.

Freshman quarterback Wyatt Pollet runs through this big hole in the first quarter of Sutton’s first-round playoff loss to North Platte St. Pats. Blocking on the play for the Mustangs is Gabe Gwennap (6), as several Sutton players watch the play develop. Pollet threw the ball for 168 yards, and ran for another 65 in the season-ending 65-28 loss.

With the Sutton Mustangs claiming a 60-20 win over the Superior Wildcats in the final game of the 2023 regular season, Oct. 12, the 40 point win earned Sutton a berth in the Class D-1 state playoffs, but the postseason berth qualified the 3-5 Mustangs as the 16th seed in the west bracket, sending them on the road to the top-seeded home site of the 8-0 North Platte St. Patrick’s Irish.

The winless Superior Wildcats found out that the Sutton Mustangs figured out their abilities in the past two games of the regular season, with wins over McCool Junction and Nebraska Christian, as Sutton stayed on the winning track, Thursday, Oct. 12, gaining a 60-20 victory over the Wildcats for three straight victories to cap the regular season with a 3-5 record.

With the win, Sutton just snuck into the Class D-1 state playoffs as the 16th seed in the west pairings. The 3-5 Mustangs will head west to North Platte this Thursday, to take on the St. Pats Irish, the west bracket’s top-seeded team, who owns an 8-0 record.

POLLET SPURS SUTTON Freshman quarterback Wyatt Pollet drove the Mustang offense, scoring three touchdowns, while passing for 233 yards and three passing scores, while rushing for a team-high 82 yards on 13 carries in the 40 point win.

Sutton opened the regular season finale with a 22-0 scoring run in the first quarter.

When the 2023 cross country season got underway in late August, Sandy Creek freshman Madalyn Andersen was a virtual unknown in the Class D cross country world, but the Cougar youngster proved to the Class D world that she was a definite force to be reckond with, as the season moved forward.

Fast forward to the postseason for Andersen, and she earned her first-ever trip to the state cross country meet in Kearney this Friday, Oct. 20.

Andersen, in a field of 46 total runners in the Class D-4 District meet, held Wednesday, Oct. 11, gained her first trip to the Kearney Country Club course with a top 15 finish in the district meet, ran on the Elks Country Club golf course in east Hastings.

Sandy Creek finished a perfect regular season, their first since the 1972 Cougars went unbeaten, as the Cougars, behind a 50-8 thrashing of the McCool Junction Mustangs, wrapped up the regular seasonwith an 8-0 record.

The win propels the Cougars into the Class D-1 state playoffs as the second seed in the first round of the west bracket in the class, where they will host the 4-4 Maxwell Wildcats. Game time was set at 5 p.m. by school officials.

The game will be the Cougars’ first home playoff game since the 2011 season, a year that Sandy Creek would go 6-3.

This marks the second straight season that Sandy Creek will head into the postseason. In 2022 Sandy Creek finished 6-4, after opening the postseason a year ago with a opening-round win over Sandhills Valley, before the Irish of North Platte St. Pat’s bounced the Cougars from the playoffs.

D1-8 CHAMPIONS

Sandy Creek homecoming royalty

Freshman quarterback, Wyatt Pollet and junior running back Weston Ohrt powered what became the Sutton Mustangs second straight win of the season by combining for 265 of Sutton 326 rushing yards, as the Mustangs held off a late Nebraska Christian rally to clip the Eagles 44-35 in front of the hometown Sutton supporters, Friday, Oct. 6.

Pollet ran for 140 yards on 22 carries, an average of 6.4 yards per carry, while Ohrt charted his third straight 100-plus yard game with a 125-yard night on 16 carries, an average of 7.8 yards per carry.

Junior Harrison Herndon picked up 61 yards on four carries in the win, as after the Eagles took a 7-6 first quarter lead, Sutton found their game and rallied behind a rushing attack and another 103 passing yards from Pollet to gain the eventual win.

The Cougars headed to Geneva for the Fillmore Central triangular, Thursday, Oct. 5, with the Cougars coming away with two wins over High Plains in three sets, and Fillmore Central in two sets.

In the opener, Sandy Creek dropped the first set 25-23, but came back in the second and third sets to win 25-23, 25-19.

Sandy Creek won by an outstanding serving performance, as they would have 11 aces and Ella Martin had seven aces in the match, Katelyn Pohlmeier added two, while Lexi Shuck and Paige Biltoft gained one each.

The Cougars were led in kills by Emma Fisher, as she collected 11 of the Cougars’ 21 kills in the match. Biltoft ended with four kills, Martin, three, Karys Lipovsky, two, and Shuck, one.

Biltoft had the only block of the match for the Cougars.

Martin and Pohlmeier ended the match with a combined 21 assists, as Martin led with 11, and Pohlmeier, 10.

The Nebraska School Activities Association released the 2023-24 Winter Sports classification report late last week, with Clay County teams facing some changes for the upcoming winter season.

WRESTLING

In wrestling, all three county schools will be in the Class D ranks, with Sandy Creek, who is going at the sport on it’s own, without the South Central Unified District, as the Cougars are listed as the 18th largest Class D school in the sport with an enrollment of 44. Sutton comes in as the 48th largest school with an enrollment of 35, while Harvard’s enrollment of 18 for boys athletics, ranking the Cardinals as the 91st largest Class D school.

GIRLS BASKETBALL Girls basketball in Clay County will remain as it was during the 2022-23 season, with Sutton remaining in Class C-2, Sandy Creek in Class D-1, and Harvard in Class D-2.

A season of vast growth came to an abrupt end Monday afternoon for the Sutton girls golf team, as the Fillies fell just 13 points short of advancing out of the C-1 District meet into the 2023 Class C state golf championship in North Platte.

On a hot and crazy windy day, the Fillies combined to shoot a 442 to place fifth overall in the final team standings. The top three teams qualify for the state tournament, with Lincoln Christian earning a 22-stroke win over second-place Auburn, 396-418, while Platteview finished with a 429 to claim the final team spot in North Platte out of the C-1 District, played at the Hidden Valley Golf Course in southeast Lincoln.

Lincoln Lutheran held a 432-442 scoring edge over Sutton to claim fourth place over the Fillies, while Sutton had a one stroke advantage over Exeter-Milligan/ Friend in the end.