Jablonski qualifies for state cross country meet

    Perfect running conditions allowed nearly every Chase County runner to record a season’s personal record last Thursday at the district cross country meet in Ogallala.
    The Longhorns emerged with a single state meet qualifier in senior Jordan Jablonski, who’ll be in Kearney Friday after finishing 11th overall in the C5 girls’ race.
    Individual runners in the top 15 qualify for state, along with the three top-scoring teams.
    In her second year running cross country, Jablonski is also a two-time state qualifier. She was the only Chase County runner at last year’s state meet, as well.
    Jablonski has a lot of experience on the Kearney course. Next week will be her fourth run, counting both UNK races this year and last.
    She’ll be aiming to beat her Kearney course PR time of 21:55, which she ran there at state last year.
    Coach Carl Zuege said the key for her Friday will be to get a good start and stay under control the first mile.
    “She also needs to get to a spot in the open and not get bottlenecked,” he said.
    Zuege said last Thursday turned out a nice day for the district races.
    “It’s a fast course and a fast field like it was will speed up the race,” he said.
    However, when scanning his team’s times from last week, he said the Longhorn runners didn’t just improve by 10 to 20 seconds, but by 30 to 45 seconds, “and some even more.”
    “We had pretty good legs and our approach and mentality was good,” Zuege said of the entire team.
    Realistically, Zuege said they knew qualifying as a team in both the boys and girls races was not going to happen.
    So, emphasizing personal records and confidence was the focus, and that happened with his runners.
    After the races, smiles were on the runners’ faces as Zuege and Asst. Coach Chris Bartels reviewed their times.
    After Jablonski, other Chase County girls who scored en route to their sixth place team finish were McKenzie Vogt, Cealyn Long and Morgan Peterson in 30th, 31st and 37th places.
    They all ran strong races, he said, while Maddie Hanes and Matalie Wallin both broke time barriers they hadn’t before.
    Trevin Moreno, who’s led the boys’ team in most of the races this year, finished highest for Chase County in 25th place.
    Zuege said he wasn’t 100% as he ran the Crandell Creek Golf Course 5K route.
    “Physically, he wasn’t able to have his best race but he did all he could,” Zuege said.
    Navy Smith, Colin O’Neil and Mason Tyerman rounded out the Longhorn boys’ scoring in 40th, 50th and 51st.
    Andrew Wiest was just four seconds behind in 53rd, while senior Nick Rau was 59th.
    Overall the boys finished ninth in the team standings.
    While the girls’ team will lose four of its six runners to graduation next year, the boys are young, with nine who could return in 2022, and three to graduate.
State meet schedule
    The Class C girls’ race at 12:30 p.m. CT is the second of eight races on Friday at the Kearney Country Club.
    The Class C girls will follow the opening Class D girls’ race which has a 12 noon CT start.
    The Class D and C awards ceremonies for boys and girls will be held near the finish line about 2 p.m. CT, prior to the running of the Class A and B races.
    A full schedule of the state meet can be found at nsaahome.org, under the cross country link.

C5 District Meet
Boys team results—1. Sidney,  16 (state qualifier); 2. Broken Bow, 35 (state qualifier); 3. Gothenburg, 52 (state qualifier); 4. Holdrege, 62; 5. Chadron, 92; 6. Ogallala, 110; 7. Hershey, 144; 8. Cozad, 158; 9. Chase County, 159; 10. Alma-So. Valley, 178; 11. Valentine, 187.
CCS boys varsity individual results (5K)—25, Trevin Moreno, 18:21.84; 40, Navy Smith, 19:06.57; 50, Colin O’Neil, 19:42.62; 51, Mason Tyerman, 19:42.62; 53, Andrew Wiest, 19:46.95; 59, Nick Rau, 20:26.67. 67 runners finished.
Girls team results—1. Sidney, 31 (state qualifier); 2. Chadron, 47 (state qualifier); 3. Broken Bow, 55 (state qualifier); 4. Ogallala, 62; 5. Mitchell, 89; 6. Chase County, 102; 7. Cozad, 103; 8. Gothenburg, 105; 9. Alma-So. Valley, 134.
CCS girls individual results (5K)—11, Jordan Jablonski, 21:00.18 (state qualifier); 30, McKenzie Vogt, 23:01.68; 31, Caelyn Long, 23:04.56; 37, Morgan Peterson, 23:33.31; 48, Madelynn Hanes, 24:58.38; 55, Matalie Wallin, 25:56.85. 59 runners finished.