Girls Wrestling
On Feb. 9th, the Nemaha Central Middle School Girls Wrestling Team went to Riley County for the Big East League Wrestling meet. The teams that participated were Riley County, Rossville, Silver Lake, Perry-Lecompton, Jeff West, Royal Valley, Sabetha, Hiawatha, Nemaha Central, Holton, and St. Marys.
The results for NC for 8th grade were: Audrey Sudbeck, 3-2 (3rd place); Brooklyn Korber, 1-3 (4th place); Charlie Koch,1-2 (3rd place); Nicole Lambrecht, 2-1 (2nd place); Viviana Chub Acte, 1-4. “I think I did pretty well, and the team did amazing overall. You should give wrestling a shot, and you will learn to love the sport,” Korber said.
The results for 7th grade were: Ellie Burkitt, 3-0 (1st place); Kyra Wagner, 0-4; Cici Holthaus, 2-0 (1st place); Emersyn Novotny, 4-0 (1st place).
Overall, the team had a great season and has a bright future if they keep doing this sport.
Article by Nicole Lambrecht
Boys Basketball
On Feb. 2, the Nemaha Central Middle School basketball team went to battle the Royal Valley Panthers.
The 8th-grade A team played first. The score at the end of the first quarter was 9-2.9 and the Panthers scored 2. In the second quarter, NC scored 7 and the Panthers scored 6. Going into halftime, the score was 16-8. NC came into the 3rd quarter strong, scoring 10 and only allowing the Panthers to score 2. This brought the score to 26-10. In the fourth quarter, NC played their best offense, scoring 13 while the Panthers scored 6. At the end of the game the Thunder came out on top 39-16. Kristian DeLosRios had a great game, scoring 10 points.
“It was light work, and I feel like we could've beat them by more,” DeLosRios said.
The 7th-grade A team played next and came out strong scoring 13 points and holding the Panthers to 3. Both teams played great defense with a score of 18-5 at the end of the second quarter. In the third quarter NC scored 8 and the Panthers scored 7, making the score 26-12 going into the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter NC scored 9 and the Panthers scored 8 bringing the final score to 35-20 with the Thunder coming out on top. Landry Hiltgen played his best scoring 15 points.
The 7th and 8th grade played a combined B team. In the first quarter NC started off strong, scoring 11 and not letting the Panthers score any. In the second quarter the Panthers played better, only letting NC score 3 while they scored 8. Coming into the 3rd quarter NC was up 14-8. In the 3rd quarter both teams played well. NC scored 10 and the Panthers scored 11 bringing the score to 24-19. To end the game NC scored 11 and the Panthers scored 5 bringing the final score to 35-24. Grady Schmelzle was the top scorer with 14 points.
Article by Grant Heinen
On Feb 5, 2026, the Nemaha Central Thunder middle school boys basketball team traveled to Sabetha for their final regular-season game.
Starting off with the 8th grade A-team, Nemaha Central had a blazing start, scoring 19 points in the first quarter and only letting the Sabetha Bluejays score 9. The Thunder had a pretty good second quarter, scoring 10 points and playing solid defense, only letting the Bluejays score 8. The score going into halftime was 29-17. Nemaha Central had a slower third quarter, only scoring 6. The Bluejays had a pretty solid quarter, scoring 9, making the score 35-26. The Thunder had a very slow fourth quarter, only scoring 3, but luckily, they played good defense and held the Bluejays to 4 points in the fourth quarter. That made the final score 38-30. The leading scorer of that game was Ethan Jost, 8th, with 14 points.
Now on to the 8th grade B-team. The Thunder had a pretty solid first quarter, scoring 8 and only letting the Bluejays score 2. Nemaha Central had a stellar second quarter, scoring 14, and played good defense, holding Sabetha to 3. The score going into halftime was 22-5 with the Thunder on top. Nemaha Central had a slow third quarter, only scoring 2. Yet again, the Thunder played good defense and only let the Bluejays score 2. The score going into the fourth quarter was 24-7. Nemaha Central had another strong quarter, scoring 14, and shut out the Bluejays in the fourth quarter. The final score was 38-7 with the Thunder coming out on top. The leading scorer of that game was Grady Schmelzle,8th, scoring 14.
Next up is the 7th grade A-team. In the first quarter, the Thunder scored 10, and the Bluejays scored 8. The second quarter was a little bit slower for both teams. Nemaha Central scored 5, and Sabetha scored 4, making the score 15-12 going into halftime. The Thunder had a decent third quarter, scoring 7, and the Bluejays scored 4. The score going into the fourth quarter was 22-16 with the Thunder on top. The Thunder had a slow fourth quarter, only scoring 4 and allowing the Bluejays to score 12. That made the final score 26-28 with Sabetha coming out with the win. The leading scorer of that game was Landry Hiltgen,7th, with 13 points. After the game, “We had a slow start to the first half. We rushed in the second half, but otherwise, we played pretty well,” Graham Lueger, 7th, said.
Finally, we have the 7th grade B-team. Nemaha Central had a strong first quarter, scoring 10 and only letting Sabetha score 2. The second quarter was a little slower. The Thunder scored 4, and the Bluejays scored 6. The score going into halftime was 14-8. The third quarter was about the same. Nemaha Central scored 4 yet again, and Sabetha scored 7. That made the score 18-15 with a tight matchup going into the fourth quarter. The Thunder scored 2 in the fourth quarter, and the Bluejays also scored 2. That made the final score 20-17 with the Thunder coming out with the tight win. The leading scorer of that game was Miles Kuckleman,7th, with 6 points.
Article by Levi Holthaus
On Jan. 7, 2026, the Nemaha Central 8th grade boys basketball team traveled to Royal Valley to play in the Big East Tournament against the Atchison Phoenix. They came out ready to play and scored 8 points to Atchison’s 7 points. The second quarter brought the halftime score to 17-13 with the Thunder leading.
“Our team played really well. Grant [Heinen] played and shot exceptionally,” Ethan Jost said. Going into the third quarter after a spectacular halftime talk, the Thunder kept dominating, and led the score 31-22. In the last quarter, the Thunder scored 9, and Atchison scored 3, bringing the final score to 40-25 with the Thunder winning.
The Thunder boys played the third seed Riley County Falcons in the second round. In the first quarter the Thunder kept the game close, 5-6 the Falcons in the lead. In the second quarter the Thunder fell behind, scoring 2 points while the Falcons scored 22. That made the halftime score 7-28, Riley County. To start the second half, the Thunder was on fire, scoring 16 points. The Falcons also scored 16 points. Grant Heinen was the main shooter for the Thunder having 4 threes and making the other team switch who was guarding him 3 times. In the fourth quarter, the Thunder lost momentum, only scoring 6 while Riley County scored 16. That made the final score 29-60, the Falcons winning, ending the 8th grade Thunder season.
On Jan. 7, 2026 the 7th grade boys traveled to Rossville for their Big East Tournament. Against Hiawatha, NC scored 7 points while holding the Red Hawks to 0 points in the first quarter. Then, in the second quarter, the Thunder scored 12, making the score 19- 6. Starting the second half, the Red Hawks came out scoring 2 and the Thunder added 12 more. Finishing the game, the Thunder scored 7 while the Red Hawks scored 8,making the final score 38-16.
Next, they played Perry-Lecompton. They started out behind scoring 3 while Perry-Lecompton scored 6. During the second quarter, they kept with the Kaws, both teams scoring 10 points. Although the Thunder was down at halftime, they came back and scored 11 in the third quarter while Perry-Lecompton only scored 4. After the fourth quarter, the score was 37-29, making for a Thunder victory.
The first game played on Feb. 9th was against the number one seed, Riley County. They started off ahead in the first quarter 11-9. In the second quarter, however, the Thunder scored 9 and Riley County scored 15. That made the halftime score 20-24 with the Falcons winning. In the third quarter, the Thunder fell behind even more, scoring 10 while the Falcons scored 19. The fourth quarter went better with the Thunder scoring 11 and Riley County scoring 8; however, the Thunder still lost with the final score 51-41.
For third and fourth place, the Thunder squared off against Jefferson West. In the first quarter, the Thunder scored 5 while the Tigers scored 8. The Tigers doubled their score in the second quarter, while the Thunder scored 6, making the halftime score 16-11 Tigers. To start the third quarter, the Thunder scored 11 points, and the Tigers scored 4, putting the Thunder in the lead by 2. The fourth quarter was downhill from there with the Thunder only scoring 2 and the Tigers scoring 6, ending with a Tiger win, 26-24. The 7th grade team placed 4th in the Big East League Tournament.
Article by Korbin Schmelzle