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On Tuesday, April 15 th the N-V track team traveled to Neligh for the Neligh-Oakdale Invite.  It was
another beautiful day for a track meet, and the Cougar athletes set many personal bests. The kids
performed very well setting one school record, two Neligh stadium records, and coming within 0.1 of
another school record!
Nine teams competed in this track meet... Elgin Public/Pope John, Elkhorn Valley, Fullerton, Humphrey-
Lindsay, Madison, Neligh-Oakdale, Niobrara-Verdigre, Osmond, and Plainview.
In the end, the N-V girls team won the runner-up team trophy falling just 14 points behind Elkhorn
Valley (116-130)! And the boys team finished in a very solid 5 th place.
Some highlights of the meet included… Delani Runnels winning 3 individual gold medals (800M,
1600M, 3200M) all while setting new stadium records in the 1600M and 3200M. Allison Sucha winning
2 golds (100M hurdles & 300M hurdles) and 2 silvers (long jump & triple jump). Arlan Lammers
winning high jump. Wyatt Shabram winning 3 medals (110M hurdles 2 nd , high jump 5 th , & 4x400M 6 th .
Wyatt also joined Alex Motacek as the first two N-V athletes to compete in pole vault. Wyatt broke
Alex’s school record set just 6 days ago with a vault of 9-0. That finished him tied for 6 th place.
Five different boys were medalists at the meet. And on the girls side, all 12 N-V athletes competing
earned medals! Here are the individual medalists:
GIRLS
Long Jump (Allison Sucha) – 2 nd place
High Jump (Amber Sucha) – 1 st place
Shot Put (Taylor Pavlik) – 2 nd place
Discus (Chloe Hanzlik) – 4 th place
100M hurdles - Allison Sucha 1 st place, Nora Kucera 2 nd place **PR**
300M hurdles (Allison Sucha) – 1 st place, Chloe Hanzlik 6 th place **PR**
Triple Jump (Allison Sucha) – 2 nd place **PR**
400M (Taylen Stark) – 4 th place
800M - Delani Runnels 1 st place, Taylen Stark 3 rd place
1600M (Delani Runnels) – 1 st place ** new stadium record 5:27.2 **
3200M (Delani Runnels) – 1 st place ** new stadium record 11:51.1 and within 0.1 seconds of her own
school rec **
4x800M Relay (Kaydence Jones, Maura Hoferer, Reina Coffman, Aliyah Yunker) – 5 th place
4x100M Relay (Kaydence Jones, Maura Hoferer, Taylor Pavlik, Emmarie Pavlik) – 6 th place
4x400M Relay (Nora Kucera, Maura Hoferer, Kaydence Jones, Emmarie Pavlik) – 4 th place
BOYS
Shot Put (Isaac Pavlik) – 5 th place (41-2.5) **PR**
Discus (Isaac Pavlik) – 3 rd place (121-10) **PR**
High Jump – Arlan Lammers 1 st place, Wyatt Shabram – 5 th place
Pole Vault (Wyatt Shabram) – tie 6 th place (9-0) **school record**
110M hurdles (Wyatt Shabram) – 2 nd place (16.62) **PR**
200M (Kellen Vesely) – 6 th place
4x400M Relay (Arlan Lammers, Alex Motacek, Kellen Vesely, Wyatt Shabram) – 6 th place
Just missing out on medals…
Jacob Motacek – 7 th place discus
4x100M Relay (Connor Thomson, Jacob Motacek, Isaac Pavlik, Kellen Vesely) – 7 th place
Arlan Lammers – 7 th place 400M
The next meet will be the St. Mary’s Invite in O’Neill on Wednesday, April 23 rd .  GO COUGARS!

A Special Congratulations to Amaryah Block for qualifying for Nationals in Web Design. 

The 2025 Orchard AAU Powerlifting Meet was held this past Friday & Saturday, April 4^th & 5^th with an awesome line-up of 170 registered lifters from across the midwest.  This year’s meet was a National meet again, so two days of competition were required to accommodate the crowd of lifters striving for State, American and even World records!  It was the 18^th year for the Orchard Meet and the crowd gets larger each year.  Orchard hosted one of the year’s largest two-day AAU powerlifting meets in the United States.  Forty-two Niobrara-Verdigre powerlifters competed in this year’s AAU Championships.  These 42 lifters had an outstanding couple of days breaking numerous State, American, and World records and six Niobrara-Verdigre school records.  Not to mention many of the lifters setting numerous personal bests.  The entire field of competition saw 50 total State, American, and even world records set by age/weight class.  We do not yet have the full list of record holders until results have been verified and finalized by the AAU National office.  We know for sure that our very own Alex Motacek, Raquel Morales-Montalvo, Levi Hofer, and Mykel Murray will be in that complete list will then be found at aausports.org under the strength-sports\records tab.   Niobrara-Verdigre also had the Elsie Magwire memorial female outstanding lifter of the meet based on strength index.  Taylor Pavlik won this award with a strength index of 4.0.  The outstanding male lifters of the meet by strength index were given in memory of Rita Shabram.  Niobrara’s very own Motacek boys were recipients of these awards.  Jacob Motacek was runner-up, and Alex Motacek won the 1^st place plaque with an eye-popping index of 7.04!  The school records that fell included:  Isaac Pavlik re-setting his own records in the squat 474 lbs, bench press 276 lbs, deadlift 507 lbs, total 1257 lbs; Alex Motacek broke his own strength index (7.04); and Raquel Morales-Montalvo broke her own squat record with 347 lbs.  After the busy day of lifting was finished, the Niobrara-Verdigre teams earned the 2025 Nebraska AAU championship trophies in the Boys AND Girls team divisions!

The top 6 teams… 1^st place Niobrara-Verdigre; 2^nd North Platte; 3^rd Boyd County; 4^th Grand Island CC; 5^th Fullerton, 6^th Summerland.

Niobrara-Verdigre had an amazing 23 individual AAU champions:   Rader Frame 77 lb youth (raw) class, Riley Fuchtman 77 lb youth push-pull (raw) class, Levi Hoferer 97 lb (raw) class, Alex Motacek 123 lb full meet AND push-pull (raw) class, Braden Collingsworth 123 lb youth (raw) class, Mykel Murray 132 lb youth full meet, bench, push-pull (raw) class, Lennix Chavez 148 lb youth (raw) class, Jacob Motacek 165 lb (raw) class, Wyatt Shabram 181 lb full meet, bench, push-pull (equipped) class, Austin Sharp 165 lb youth (raw) class, Heydon Strope 198 lb open (raw) class, Isaac Pavlik 220 lb bench and push pull (raw) class, Justin Reiley 242 lb open bench (raw) class, Christine Mechaley 97 lb push-pull (raw) class, Sydney Kumm 105 lb (raw) class, Gwen Bonham 105 lb (raw) class, Holly Pavlik 148 lb (raw) class, Aliyah Yunker 165 lb (raw) class, Kami Simons 165 lb (equipped) class, Taylor Pavlik 181 lb full meet, bench, push-pull (raw) class, Raquel Morales-Montalvo 220 lb full meet, push-pull (raw) class, Emilee Babcock 220+ lb push-pull (raw) class, Katie Koerick 165 lb push-pull (raw) class.  Ten lifters won the silver medal in their weight class... Charles Frame 105 lb (raw) class, Carter Sharp 132 lb youth (raw) class, Zack Bolling 165 lb youth (raw) class, Isaac Pavlik 220 lb full meet, bench, push pull (raw) class, Gunnar Shabram 242 lb full meet, bench, push pull (raw) class, Praeson Klug 308 lb (raw) class, Melody Bonham 123 lb (raw) class, Violet Pavlik 123 lb youth (raw) class, Dayna Sharp 132 lb (raw) class, Emmarie Pavlik 148 lb (raw) class.  Five lifters won the bronze medal in their weight class… Danny Pease 132 lb (raw) class, Logan Collingsworth 148 lb (raw) class, Jeff Shabram 242 lb open (raw) class, Lorenzo Denny 308 lb (raw) class, RaeLynne Nelson 181 lb (raw) class.  Other Cougar medalists were… Miranda Stohlmann 4^th place 148 lb (raw) class, Sam Sucha 5^th place 132 lb (raw) class, Beckett Wessendorf 6^th place 198 lb (raw) class, Nyla Wright 6^th place 148 lb (raw) class, Gage Vesely 9^th place 165 lb (raw) class.  It was an impressive display of power this weekend!

Saturday’s meet was the last of the 2024-25 school year.  Next season then kicks off with the Creighton Prep Powerlifting Meet in December.  Nice job and keep up the good work kids!  It is fun to watch you grow in both mind and body.  Seniors… you are an hard-working group of lifters.  We will miss you at the high school only meets but hope to have you at some of the open meets.  Keep lifting!!  A complete list of results along with records will be posted soon on the www.aau-ne.com website and the www.aaunebraskapowerlifting.com website under the 2025 Orchard Meet link.  Saturday was an overall amazing display of power for many of the competitors.  The heaviest total this year was lifted by Brian Benshoof of Bellevue with 1636 pounds!  Congratulations to all lifters.  Please check out the complete list.

This meet would not have happened had it not been for our very generous sponsors and the help of many volunteers from our communities…  Judges Ethan Wondercheck, Monte Lofing, Monte Shabram, Jack Allemang, Grant Magnuson, Jacob Behnk, Mike Kirby, Ethan Uhlir, Layla Freeman, Gunnar Shabram, and Heaven Smith.  Spotters & loaders Heydon Strope, Kasen Kazemba, Jacob Pavelka, Levi Hoferer, Beckett Wessendorf, Lorenzo Denny, Kaiden Bauer, Kellen Vesely, Carter Nelson, Kevin Leininger, Zander Cepal, Preston Watson, Mike Strope, Paul Krutz, Deric Sayers, Jason Shaver, Arttie Parker, Trey Sucha, David Shabram, Riley Saul, Justin Reiley.  The scorer’s table consisting of Amanda Shabram, Ann Holz, Olivia Holz, RaeLynne Nelson, Karla Uhlir, Melody Bonham, Gwen Bonham, Starlet Nielsen, Kristi Rohrer, Brittney Krutz, Jaelyn Shaver, Raina Krebs, Eve Kucera, and Amy Holz kept this large meet running smoothly.  Ticket table and t-shirts Bob Krutz and Sally Cronk.  Video was run by N-V powerlifters and Carter Kucera.  The very popular concession stand was provided by Stephanie Cleveland with help from powerlifting parents and Orchard community volunteers.  All sponsored by Dusty’s.  Reiman Coffee Company was present with coffee and smoothies again!  The hospitality room for meet and coaches was provided by Orchard Old School Thrift.  It takes individuals from multiple communities to pull off this big of an event, and it was another wonderful highlight of a fun powerlifting season!  GO COUGARS!

Here are our local sponsors…

2025 Orchard Powerlifting Meet Sponsors

Shabram Grinding

Antelope County Visitors Committee

Finch Contracting                                                                                                             

Tip Top Lawn Care

Hi-Way 20 Seed/Plains Cover Crop                                                                           

Diamond S Insurance

Bank of Orchard - Ben Clifton                                                                                                               

Hammer Insurance

Brunswick State Bank                                                                                                     

Ferguson Ag

Cut it Up                                                                                                                              

ReNew Salon

Ag Services – Page                                                                                                           

Willie’s Service

Around the Horn Sportscards                                                                                      

Erb’s Grocery

Lazy T Tire & Implement                                                                                               

Verdigre PrintWorks

Summerland Advocate-Messenger                                                                          

Gordon Shrader Farms

Antelope County News/Orchard News                                                                  

Robert Johnston Farms

The Verdigre Eagle                                                                                                          

Orchard Old School Thrift

Corner Hardware & More                                                                                             

Northeast Nebraska Heating & Cooling

Central Valley Ag

Butch's Body Shop

Dusty's

Orchard Lumber

Sugarz Cafe                                                                                                          

Jack & Karen Allemang

Grant & Dian Magnuson                                                                                                   

Jeff & Amanda Shabram                                                                                 

Monte Shabram

On Wednesday, April 9^th the N-V track team traveled to Creighton for the Knox County Invite.  It was a beautiful day for a track meet, and the Cougar athletes took full advantage.  The kids competed their hearts out with MANY personal bests set along with two new school records!

Nine teams competed in this track meet... Bloomfield, Boyd County, Creighton, Crofton, Laurel-Concord-Coleridge, Neligh-Oakdale, Niobrara-Verdigre, Santee, and Wausa.

After all the dust had settled, the N-V girls team won the 1^st place trophy by a very slim margin of 5 points over runner-up Wausa!  And the boys team finished in 6^th place. 

Some highlights of the meet included… Allison Sucha winning 3 individual gold medals (long jump, 100M hurdles, 300M hurdles) along with a bronze in the 200M.  Delani Runnels winning 3 individual gold medals (800M, 1600M, 3200M) and a bronze in the 4x800.  Taylor Pavlik breaking her own school shot put record by 1.5 inches (37-5.5).  Alex Motacek making school history as the first Cougar track athlete to compete in pole vault earning 9^th place with a vault of 7-6.

Ten different boys were medalists at the meet.  And on the girls side, N-V only had 8 athletes competing, which makes earning the 1^st place team title that much more impressive!

Here are the individual medalists:

GIRLS

Long Jump (Allison Sucha) – 1^st place

Shot Put (Taylor Pavlik) – 1^st place (37-5.5) ** new school record **

Discus (Chloe Hanzlik) – 3^rd place (105-0) **PR**

100M hurdles - Allison Sucha 1^st place, Nora Kucera 3^rd place, Chloe Hanzlik 4^th place.

300M hurdles (Allison Sucha) – 1^st place

200M (Allison Sucha) – 3^rd place

400M (Taylen Stark) – 4^th place

800M (Delani Runnels) – 1^st place

1600M (Delani Runnels) – 1^st place

3200M (Delani Runnels) – 1^st place

4x800M Relay (Kaydence Jones, Maura Hoferer, Taylen Stark, Delani Runnels) – 3^rd place

4x400M Relay (Nora Kucera, Chloe Hanzlik, Maura Hoferer, Taylen Stark) – 3^rd place

BOYS

Shot Put (Arlan Lammers) – 5^th place (40-10) **PR**

Discus (Jacob Motacek) – 4^th place (122-8) **PR**

Long Jump (Carter Nelson) – 5^th place (18-9.5) **PR**

High Jump (Wyatt Shabram) – 5^th place

110M hurdles (Wyatt Shabram) – 3^rd place (16.95) **PR**

400M (Arlan Lammers) – 3^rd place (54.33) **PR**

4x800M Relay (Kasen Kazemba, Aiden Henry, Bryan Coffman, Alex Motacek) – 4^th place

4x100M Relay (Connor Thomson, Carter Nelson, Jacob Motacek, Kellen Vesely) – 6^th place

4x400M Relay (Arlan Lammers, Alex Motacek, Kellen Vesely, Wyatt Shabram) – 5^th place

The next meet will be the Neligh-Oakdale Invite on Tuesday, April 15^th at Creighton.  GO COUGARS!

N-V track competes in the Neligh Relays…

On Thursday, March 27^th the N-V Cougar track & field team traveled to Neligh to open the 2025 season by participating in the Neligh Relays.  Six schools competed in this fun, relay-style track meet... Niobrara-Verdigre, Neligh-Oakdale, Elkhorn Valley, Summerland, Wausa, and Creighton.  What a beautiful day Thursday’s weather was for a track meet!  Scoring for this meet involves adding the combined best marks from up to four competing athletes in each event.  Top four teams in each event score team points (10-8-6-4).  The list of events includes sprint relays, distance relays, hurdle relay, medley relays, and all of the field events.

Both the girls team and boys team finished in 3^rd place overall.  Girls… 1^st place Elkhorn Valley and 2^nd place Neligh-Oakdale.  Boys… 1^st place Summerland and 2^nd place Elkhorn Valley.  The highlight of the day was Taylor Pavlik breaking her own school record in shot put (by nearly 3 feet!) with a throw of 37-4.

Here are the relay teams scoring points:

GIRLS

Long Jump (Allison Sucha, Kaydence Jones, Reina Coffman) – 4^th place

Shot Put (Taylor Pavlik, Aliyah Yunker, Maura Hoferer, Emmarie Pavlik) – 1^st place

Discus (Chloe Hanzlik, Taylor Pavlik, Aliyah Yunker, Emmarie Pavlik) – 2^nd place

Hurdle Relay (Allison Sucha, Nora Kucera, Chloe Hanzlik, Maura Hoferer) – 1^st place

4x200M Relay (Allison Sucha, Chloe Hanzlik, Nora Kucera, Delani Runnels) – 1^st place

4x400M Relay (Allison Sucha, Chloe Hanzlik, Maura Hoferer, Delani Runnels) – 2^nd place

Sprint Medley Relay (Kaydence Jones, Aliyah Yunker, Nora Kucera, Delani Runnels) – 3^rd place

Field Event Relay (Taylor Pavlik, Aliyah Yunker, Emmarie Pavlik, Reina Coffman) – 3^rd place

BOYS

Long Jump (Carter Nelson, Connor Thomson, Alex Motacek, Lucas Keeble) – 4^th place

High Jump (Arlan Lammers, Alex Motacek, Wyatt Shabram, Bryan Coffman) – 3^rd place

Discus (Jacob Motacek, Isaac Pavlik, Wyatt Shabram, Gage Vesely) – 3^rd place

Hurdle Relay (Wyatt Shabram, Arlan Lammers, Carter Nelson, Kasen Kazemba) – 3^rd place

4x100M Relay (Connor Thomson, Gage Vesely, Isaac Pavlik, Carter Nelson) – 3^rd place

4x400M Relay (Wyatt Shabram, Arlan Lammers, Alex Motacek, Bryan Coffman) – 3^rd place

Field Event Relay (Isaac Pavlik, Jacob Motacek, Gage Vesely, Lucas Keeble) – 4^th place

The next meet will be the Hartington CC Invite on Tuesday, April 1^st.  GO COUGARS!

Ten lifters from the Niobrara-Verdigre powerlifting team traveled to Peru State College this past Saturday, February 15^th for the Peru State Powerlifting Meet.  After all the dust had settled, N-V came away with the runner-up team trophy!  The only team scoring higher was Lexington.  This marked the first time for either Verdigre OR Niobrara-Verdigre earning a team trophy from the Peru St. powerlifting meet.  The Cougar lifters were smaller in numbers (no boys BB players or wrestlers) but ready for the challenge and were AWESOME.  We can be very proud of our kids.  They did an amazing job of representing our schools and communities.

Aside from ALL lifters bringing home a medal, some other individual highlights included:  Isaac Pavlik breaking his own N-V school records in squat (445 lbs), deadlift (500 lbs), and total (1190 lbs); and Raquel Morales-Montalvo breaking the Peru St. meet record deadlift (380 lbs) along with tying the N-V school record squat (325 lbs).  This school squat record is also held by Gabrielle Pavlik and was set in March 2023.

The Niobrara-Verdigre Co-Ed team finished in 2^nd place!  Top 3 team standings…  1^st place Lexington; 2^nd place Niobrara-Verdigre; 3^rd place Crete; 4^th place Nebraska City; 5^th place McCook; 6^th place Columbus.  Other teams competing were Columbus Lakeview, Omaha Gross Catholic, Lincoln High, Conestoga, Johnson-Brock, Grand Island CC, and Boyd County.

We had two individual gold medal winners… Isaac Pavlik in the 220 lb class (boys) and Christine Mechaley in the 97 lb class (girls).  Our only other boy competitor was Mykel Murray, and he earned the bronze medal in the 132 lb class, beating all but two high school boys in that weight class! 

Then on the girls side… silver medalists were Melody Bonham in 123 lb class and Raquel Morales-Montalvo in the 198+ lb class.   Bronze medalist was Taylor Pavlik in the 181 lb class.  Other medalists included Gwen Bonham 4^th place 105 lb class, RaeLynne Nelson 4^th place 181 lb class, Aliyah Yunker 5^th place 165 lb class, and Emmarie Pavlik 6^th place 148 lb class.

The Verdigre High School gymnasium will be rocking March 1^st with the 4^th annual Verdigre Powerlifting Meet.  The Cougar lifters are looking forward to the opportunity to lift in their home gym and put on a show for the local fans.  We have 200 lifters from across the state registered to compete at our meet.  It is extremely tough competition and should be a fun day!  Lifting begins 9:00 am.

Looking ahead… the Class D State Meet is on Saturday, March 22^nd at Harvard High School.  And then the Orchard AAU Powerlifting Meet is a National AAU meet again this year and is a two-day event set for April 4^th & 5^th.  GO COUGARS!