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If you missed them at last month's state high school track meet, you have a second chance to watch some of the state's best runners compete Saturday and Sunday at the Nebraska Association USATF Junior Olympics.

Clara Nichols, LaQue Moen-Davis, Kristie Mullen, Nakita Brewer and Breunna McCarty are among the decorated runners who will compete at Burke Stadium for berths in next month's Region 8 championships in St. Paul, Minn.

Athletes from western Iowa also are part of the Nebraska Association, including LSU recruit Alex Gochenour and budding distance star Rebekah Topham, who will be a freshman at Griswold in the fall.

Brewer, Gochenour, Nichols and McCarty all will meet in the 200 meters, while Nichols, Brewer and Mullen will vie for the 400 title in the young women's (ages 17-18) age group. Moen-Davis of Omaha North and Gochenour of Logan-Magnolia won the Nebraska and Iowa 100 hurdle titles and are set to race in that event.

Millard South's Nichols, who won gold in the 200 and set an all-class state record in the 400, also will meet Mullen in the 800, an event the South Dakota recruit won the past two years for Omaha Roncalli.

While there won't be multiple heats in many events, meet director John Wissler said the athletes running will be worth watching.

“The quantity might not be there, but the quality sure will be,” Wissler said.

On the boys side, there are at least two runners with seed times better than the existing association record times.

Papillion-La Vista's Kenzo Cotton leads the way in both the 100 and 200 in his first year of competition in the intermediate boys (ages 15-16) age group. Cotton was the state gold medalist in the 200 this spring as a freshman, and his seed times from the high school season of 11.00 in the 100 and 22.20 in the 200 would put him in the record books.

Cotton also is entered in the long jump and will run a leg on the Bellevue Breeze 400 relay team. Cotton's younger brother Kurtis is in his second season of competition in the midget boys (11-12) age group, and is within striking distance of the association records in the 100 and 200 set three years ago by Darius Trout-Brown.

Another runner in the midget group is Seth Hirsch of the Omaha Racers, the younger brother of Class A girls 3,200-meter champion Sidney Hirsch. At the Nebraska Youth Athletics championship meet June 4 at Omaha Benson, Hirsch bettered the national record of 9:38.52 set in 1998 by winning in 9:37.00.

But that mark can't be submitted for record consideration because Hirsch competed against older athletes.

Lincoln Southwest's Christian Sanderfer will compete this weekend in the pole vault, the event he won at state with a height of 15-8½. The top four vaulters in the field — Sanderfer, Christian Mapes of Omaha Creighton Prep, Andrew Tatum of Lincoln North Star and Mark Seeba of Bellevue West — medaled in the Class A state meet.

Contact the writer:

490-9714, alexsdad@mail.com

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