Defending Class B state champion Aurora got off to a great start Friday night against No. 7 Crete. It looked like the Cardinals might pull the upset until the Huskies got things rolling in the second half of a 43-17 victory.
Aurora junior Joe Broekemeier had a great debut as starting quarterback. He not only threw the ball well but also showed a great ability to run the triple option play. His fake to Nate Suck in the third quarter helped pave the way to a 69-yard touchdown run on a play that c…
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Added by Bob Hamar on August 29, 2009 at 12:47pm —
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Both Grand Island and Kearney submitted bids to host the state volleyball tournament for 2010 and 2011as the cities once again try to wrestle the tournament away from Lincoln.
The Lincoln Journal-Star reports the capital city's bid included a cash incentive to be used for facility rental of $60,000. That's up from $55,000 from the last bid two years ago.Lincoln's bid proposed to use the Devaney Center for finals in 2010 and 2012 and the NU Coliseum in 2011. The Coliseum isn't available if the H…
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Added by Bob Hamar on April 2, 2009 at 5:24pm —
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Here are my picks for the up coming boys state tournament. Sorry I couldn’t pick all the area teams to win, but some have really tough first-round matchups.
The toughest was Hampton. The Hawks head for coach Jerry Eickhoff’s final weekend of action after 40 years in the business and they have to open state play against No. 1 Ewing. Ouch. Eickhoff will have his team ready, but this is going to be a tough one. If the Hawks can keep the score in the 40s they have a shot. Litchfield will also have a…
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Added by Bob Hamar on March 10, 2009 at 5:00pm —
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I'm sitting courtside at Pershing Auditorium watching Ravenna roll past Cambridge in a Class C-2 state semifinal game. The Bluejays also won the Class C-2 state volleyball championship last fall, but it just hit me that this group of Ravenna athletes is a bunch of basketball players who also managed a volleyball title, not the other way around.
Madison Pernicek is headed for Wayne State to play volleyball, and she'll do very well there, but she is the best 6-foot point guard I've seen for a lon…
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Added by Bob Hamar on March 6, 2009 at 11:30am —
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Here are the projected state tournament pairings for Class C-1 and C-2. C-1 No. 2-rated Hastings St. Cecilia will play seventh seed North Bend Central in the opening round at Pershing next Thursday. Win that and the Bluehawks will either play Boys Town or Pierce. St. Cecilia defeated Boys Town 65-63 in the Centennial Conference tournament and lost to Pierce 50-48 at the Doane College Holiday Tournament. Both are tough match ups. Boys Town may be 18-7, but they enter state on a nine-game winning…
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Added by Bob Hamar on March 3, 2009 at 9:08am —
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One of the top district final will be played Monday at Aurora when Class C-1 No. 2 Hastings St. Cecilia (20-1) plays unranked St. Paul (19-3). The Wildcats can play with the Bluehawks – if they do the three things Grand Island Central Catholic didn’t do in their 45-29 loss to St. Cecilia Thursday night.
Turnovers, transition points and defensive rebounding. Those are the keys against St. Cecilia. The Crusaders weren’t able to do all those things, particularly in the first quarter when they had s…
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Added by Bob Hamar on February 27, 2009 at 11:30am —
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There weren’t too many upsets in the first two rounds of boys subdistrict play. Maybe one of the most surprising results to some - - although it wasn’t a big upset - - was Boone Central knocking off a good Columbus Scotus team in the a Class C-1, Subdistrict 6 bunny-bracket game on Monday. The Cardinals went on to edge David City on Tuesday and will now face North Bend Central in the subdistrict final on Thursday. Boone Central is a big, strong team up front that has been through a very challeng…
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Added by Bob Hamar on February 25, 2009 at 9:30am —
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Central Catholic coach Bill Gavers said Friday’s scheduled game at St. Cecilia should have been played.
Not postponed. Not canceled. It should have been played as scheduled.
That’s because the storm that swept through central Nebraska was done by 2 p.m. The Crusaders were ready and willing to make the trip to Hastings for the game.
“We were willing to go yesterday,” Gavers said. “The roads were fine. At 2 o’clock the sun was shining, and the game should have been played on Friday. That’s a per…
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Added by Bob Hamar on February 16, 2009 at 11:00am —
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It’s just two weeks until boys subdistrict play begins, so it’s not too early to take a look at some of the teams in the area and their road to the state tournament.
Class A
Grand Island Senior High is in the Class A, District 7 tournament along with Kearney, Norfolk and North Platte. If the season ended today, Norfolk (12-5) would be the top seed and face the Islanders (5-14) in the first round with Kearney (7-11) going against North Platte (10-6) in the other semifinal. Obviously the Islander…
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Added by Bob Hamar on February 9, 2009 at 11:19am —
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I'm looking forward to a basketball marathon on Valentine's Day this year when the second annual Heartland Hoops Classic takes place at the Heartland Events Center. Here are the matchups:
D-1 No. 3 Burwell vs. Heartland Lutheran
Weeping Water vs. Wood River
Boone Central vs. Central City
C-2 No. 3 Fremont Bergan vs. C-2 No. 5 Ravenna
St. Paul vs. Minden
No. 5 overall No. 1 Class B Ralston vs. C-1 No. Hastings St. Cecilia
C-1 No. 1, No. 7 overall Chadron vs. C-1 No. 6 GICC
Three games stand ou…
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Added by Bob Hamar on February 6, 2009 at 10:21am —
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I heard about an interesting happening at the Central Catholic/Kearney Catholic boys game on Tuesday. It was overtime. The tip went up and was controlled by Kearney Catholic. The Stars started running their offense in front of the Central Catholic bench and the Crusaders went into there normal defense.
It didn't take coach Bill Gavers long to figure out that was wrong. The Stars should have been going the other direction toward the opposite basket. Eventually the officials realized what was wro…
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Added by Bob Hamar on January 22, 2009 at 4:07pm —
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There's an interesting match up Tuesday night in Giltner when two unbeatens go at it. Class D-1 No. 3 Giltner (6-0) hosts No. 10 Lawrence-Nelson (6-0). Giltner had a great football season before falling in the D-1 quarterfinals. A lot of those athletes are also on the basketball team.
On the girls side, it's D-1 No. 8 Giltner (5-1) against D-2 No. 4 Lawrence-Nelson (6-0). Of course Giltner won the D-1 state volleyball title. The Hornets opened the basketball season with a 38-36 loss to Harvard…
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Added by Bob Hamar on January 5, 2009 at 11:57pm —
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The second annual Heartland Hoops Classic will take place Feb. 14 at the Heartland Events Center in Grand Island. There are seven boys games on the docket for this year:
9:30 a.m. - Burwell vs. Heartland Lutheran
11:15 a.m. - Weeping Water vs. Wood River
1 p.m. - Boone Central vs. Central City
2:45 p.m. - Fremont Bergan vs. Ravenna
4:30 p.m. - St. Paul vs. Minden
6:15 p.m. - Ralston vs. Hastings St. Cecilia
8 p.m. - Grand Island CC vs. Chadron
Ralston-St. Cecilia may be the biggest game of the…
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Added by Bob Hamar on December 28, 2008 at 2:14pm —
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Anyone who watched Papillion-LaVista's volleyball team this season knows that Gina Mancuso is pretty good. The senior outside hitter, who has signed to play at Nebraska, has developed into one of the top prep players in the country.
On Thursday, she will be named the Gatorade Player of the Year. Mancuso, a younger sister to former Husker Dani Mancuso, will be the first player from the state of Nebraska to win the award.
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Added by Bob Hamar on December 18, 2008 at 10:00am —
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Wow. What a performance by the Grand Island wrestlers on Saturday. The Islanders went to a tough East-West Dual Classic at Lincoln East and faced a couple of other top 5 teams, but it wasn't even close.
The Islanders defeated Millard North 61-16, Omaha Creighton Prep 61-9, Omaha Burke 64-12, Lincoln East 69-12 and Kearney 54-21. Those sound like more like Oklahoma football scores than wrestling results. The Islanders had 67 matches and recorded 40 pins. You can't get much more dominant than tha…
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Added by Bob Hamar on December 14, 2008 at 11:43am —
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Basketball season gets under way on Thursday night. Here's a quick look at the four city teams in Grand Island:
Senior High - The Islanders have three seniors on the team including Sam Carstens who will be one of the top players int he state. Carstens can "shoot the rock" as Dickey V likes to say. Coach Dave Oman also expects to start three sophomores in Max Ayoub and Travis Scheuler. Jeff Jeffries, who played last year as a freshman, will also see his share of action. The Islanders will rely o…
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Added by Bob Hamar on December 3, 2008 at 10:37am —
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Central City's Lexie Malm, a 6-2 junior middle blocker, has orally committed to the Creighton recruiting class for 2010. The Bluejays are getting a tall, physical player who hasn't played club volleyball. That's surely one thing the Creighton staff saw in her. Malm's potential is impressive.
Creighton assistant coach Angie Oxley-Behrends, who played on Nebraska's 2000 national championship team, was in attendance to watch Malm play when the Bison faced Grand Island Central Catholic in subdistri…
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Added by Bob Hamar on November 26, 2008 at 6:30pm —
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The Independent had two more volleyball champions this fall in Ravenna and Giltner. The Kearney Hub also covers Ravenna. When I was told that was the Hub's first state volleyball champion since 1993, I was shocked. So I decided to add up The Independent's area champs and see where we're at.
If my count is right, we have had 17 state championship volleyball teams from 1994 to 2008. That's pretty impressive.
We've had six area football teams win titles (not counting six-man since the NSAA droppe…
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Added by Bob Hamar on November 24, 2008 at 5:07pm —
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I had a chance to talk a bit with Ewing star Hayley Thramer after her team's victory over Chambers in the Class D-2 state championship match last week. What a nice young lady. She will likely redshirt next season, then will be ready to play the 2010 season.
Thramer had orally committed to Wisconsin because the Huskers didn't have a scholarship available for her. But when Rachel Holloway left the program in January, suddenly John Cook had a spot for Thramer. She said it wasn't easy telling the W…
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Added by Bob Hamar on November 20, 2008 at 1:05pm —
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Long-time Lincoln East volleyball coach Myron Oehlerking announced his retirement earlier this week after 37 years in the business. He leaves as the state's all-time winningest coach with 793 victories. The Spartans went 25-11this season and advanced to the state tournament for the fourth straight season.
Oehlerking certainly left his mark on high school volleyball in Nebraska. At age 75, he has now coached in six different decades. He started at Adams in 1958 and coached several different spor…
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Added by Bob Hamar on November 19, 2008 at 11:44pm —
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