With two Class A districts able to end up in a five-way tie, there's going to be some disappointed teams on the outside of the state playoffs.

Maybe Kearney, which has qualified every year but one since 2001. Maybe Millard North, Bellevue West or Papillion-La Vista South.

Only the top three teams in a district are automatic qualifiers. The fourth-place team with the best overall record also qualifies.

District A-2 could see Lincoln Southeast, Lincoln Southwest, Norfolk, Elkhorn and Kearney tied with 3-2 district records if this week Southwest beats Elkhorn, Norfolk beats Kearney and Southeast beats Lincoln East and next week Southwest beats Lincoln East, Elkhorn beats Norfolk and Kearney beats Southeast.

Under the first applicable tiebreaker, best overall record, Southeast would be first because it would be 7-2. Southwest, Norfolk and Elkhorn would need a tiebreaker to decide the next two places at 6-3 and Kearney would be eliminated with a 5-4 record. The loser of the tiebreaker for the 6-3 teams would remain alive for the fourth-place at-large berth.

District A-4's five-way tie results if this week Millard North beats Omaha Burke and Papillion-La Vista South beats Omaha North and next week Burke beats Papio South and Omaha North beats Bellevue West.

Omaha North and Burke would be 6-3 and Millard North could be 6-3 if it beats Millard South in a non-district game next week. Papio South, because it beat Bellevue West 24-13 last Friday, would be the fourth-place team and Bellevue West would be eliminated.

Meanwhile, there could be as many as three sub-.500 teams that qualify. One is certain from District A-5, either Omaha Benson (2-5) or Omaha South (1-6). Omaha Central (2-5) is expected to qualify in District A-3 and Fremont (1-6) is a possibility in District A-1.

In A-1, Lincoln North Star already has qualified. Lincoln Northeast qualifies with a win Friday over North Platte. Grand Island needs to beat either North Star or Lincoln High.

In A-3, Papillion-La Vista and Millard West qualify with wins this week over Omaha Westside and Bellevue East, respectively. Omaha Central has the inside track to the third-place berth, as the Eagles (1-2 in district play) finish with Omaha Bryan and Westside.

In A-5, Millard South is in already and is district champion by beating winless Omaha Northwest. Omaha Creighton Prep essentially is in, too, as its final district game will be against Omaha South. The Benson-South winner is third.

Two small-school teams on Friday were the first to qualify for the six-class, 96-team playoffs. Creighton beat West Holt 42-15 for the District 6 berth in Class C-2 and Sterling beat Falls City Sacred Heart 46-6 for the District 1 berth in Eight Man-2.

Teams that earn playoff berths with wins this week are Wisner-Pilger, Norfolk Catholic and Minden in C-1; Yutan, Ponca, Ravenna, Blue Hill and Sutherland in C-2; Bancroft-Rosalie, Osmond, Burwell, Palmer, Amherst, Eustis-Farnam and Garden County in Eight Man-1; and Allen, Wynot, Ewing and Pleasanton in Eight Man-2.

Ratings moves: Lincoln Southeast is the first No. 2 team in the Top 10 to win its next game for the first time since Omaha Creighton Prep was No. 2 in the preseason and opened the year with a win over Lincoln Northeast. Southeast edged Lincoln Southwest 17-12. Bellevue West drops from sixth to 10th for its loss to Papio South and Millard North drops out from No. 7 for its 21-13 loss to Omaha North.

McCook re-enters in Class B at No. 10. West Point Central Catholic barges into the C-2 list at No. 8 with a 12-7 win over Oakland-Craig that knocks the Knights from fifth to ninth. Palmer is the fourth No. 1 team in as many weeks in Eight Man-1 after winning 44-31 at previous leader Shelby. Hayes Center, Anselmo-Merna and Lawrence-Nelson are new to the Eight Man-2 ratings.

Al-Most: Nate Most of Giltner threw nine touchdown passes, eight in the first half, in a 70-36 win over Shelton. That was the most for any eight-man quarterback since Tyler Kracke of Nebraska Lutheran threw for a state-record 10 against Exeter-Milligan in 2001.

Six for soph: Omaha Westside sophomore quarterback Cameron Morgan tied a Class A record with six touchdowns in the Warriors' first win of the year, 42-29 over Omaha Bryan.

Top games this week:

(Kickoff 7 p.m. Friday unless noted)

Class A: Elkhorn-Lincoln SW at Seacrest (4:30), Millard West at Bellevue East, Bellevue West-Omaha Creighton Prep at UNO (7:30), Millard North at Omaha Burke.

Class B: Plattsmouth-Omaha Gross at Papillion-LV South (Thursday), Waverly at Omaha Skutt.

Class C-1: Ashland-GW at Wahoo Neumann.

Class C-2: Creighton at Oakland-Craig, Fremont Bergan at Stanton, Ponca at Hartington CC, Malcolm at Wilber Clatonia.

Eight Man-1: Amherst at Overton, Axtell at Giltner.

Eight Man-2: Ewing at Chambers (8 p.m.), Elgin Pope John at Spalding/SA, Sargent at Pleasanton.

Contact the writer:

444-1041, stu.pospisil@owh.com

« High Schools

Share