Five Cedar County Athletes Play in Record Breaking All-Star Football Game
NORFOLK - It was a record breaking game at the sixth annual Northeast Nebraska All-Star Football Classic. Five Cedar County athletes competed for the Red team, losing 40-35, a record for total points.
In total, eleven records were broken, including seven individually.
A special rule for the All-Star Game helped the Red Team almost catch the White, helping breat the scoring record on the way. The previous record was 63 total points. The rule gave a team down by 17 points or more the ball back after any score. A list of all records broken is listed below.
Players from schools across the area are selected to play in this game, and athletes that were rivals for four years suddenly find themselves on the same team. Cedar Catholic’s Quinn Paulsen says that players will quickly get past that mentality.
“At first, like Monday and Tuesday, it is a little different because they are your rivals and you think of them as rivals still,” said Paulsen. “Then you bond with them as teammates and you create a kind of brotherhood that will last longer than this week.”
Paulsen played on the offensive line along with his Trojan teammate Jacob Haahr. Paulsen was at left guard and Haahr was at left tackle to start the game. A third Hartington lineman was added to the offense later in the game, when Hartington-Newcastle’s Alex Kneifl came in at center, putting three Hartington players on the line.
“It shows that Hartington has talent and they ain’t afraid to show it,” said Haahr.
Kneifl, like a good amount of the players, competed in eight man football. this was his first taste of action at eleven man, and he said it took some getting used to in practice.
“It was a lot different. I played on the line and the linemen are a lot different, a lot bigger.”
Like Kneifl, Mason Nordhues, of Randolph, came from an eight man squad and played on the line himself. The key word to Nordhues describing the entire experience was ‘fun.’
“It was kind of fun just to get out and play with new players,” said Nordhues. “I played against quite a few of these kids at Randolph, and it is different. I play eight man and it was pretty cool to come out and play 11-man for once because I had never played 11-man before. It was a pretty fun experience to come out and try something new for sure because 11-man is whole different story.”
There was one position player from Cedar Catholic that was quite involved on defense. Jackson Eickhoff played running back and linebacker for the Trojans, but moved to strong safety for the All-Star Game.He said his experience at linebacker helped him in the new position.
“I think it helped a lot with the run fills and short coverage routes, but mostly just filling up the alleys on runs,” said Eickhoff.
The Trojan senior had the second most tackles for the Red team, with eight. He was second only to Jaden Janssen of Crofton who broke a three way tie for the record of Most Individual Tackles, with 13. The previous record of 12 was set by Trevor Pecena, Wayne, in 2014, and was tied by Dalton Wagner, Boone Central/Newman Grove, and Russell McLean, Ponca, in 2017.
None of the five Cedar County players will be continuing on with the sport in college, and each player noted how special it was to wear their high school helmet one last time.
MOST TEAM YARDS PASSING: Red – 412 yards
MOST TOTAL TEAM YARDS: White – 510 yards
MOST TOTAL POINTS: Both Teams – 75
MOST TEAM PASSES COMPLETED: White – 23
MOST INDIVIDUAL YARDS PASSING: Alex Thramer (O’Neill) – 351 yds
MOST INDIVDUAL PASSES COMPLETED: Alex Thramer (O’Neill) – 23
MOST INDIVIDUAL PASS RECEPTIONS: Mason Lee (Wayne) – 10
MOST INDIVIDUAL YARDS RECEIVING: Mason Lee (Wayne) – 255
MOST INDIVIDUAL TOUCHDOWNS: Mason Lee (Wayne) – 3
MOST INDIVIDUAL RECEPTIONS FOR TOUCHDOWNS: Mason Lee (Wayne) – 3
MOST INDIVIDUAL TACKLES: Jaden Janssen (Crofton) – 13
White 12 7 14 7 40
Red 0 7 6 22 35
First quarter
WHITE: Matt Hoffmann 2 run (kick blocked), 6:36
WHITE: Hunter Pilakowski 2 run (pass failed), :27
Second quarter
RED: Mason Lee 84 pass from Bryce Kerkman (Payton Love kick), 3:28
WHITE: Alex Thramer 9 run (Jacob Polk kick), :24
Third quarter
WHITE: Stone Kraft 5 pass from Thramer (Polk kick), 9:41
WHITE: Kraft 35 pass from Thramer (Polk kick), 5:23
RED: Collin Tinker 2 run (Pass failed), 3:29
Fourth quarter
WHITE: Cody Nelson 9 pass from Thramer (Polk kick), 11:55
RED: Lee 4 pass from Kerkman (Dalton Tremayne pass from Kerkman), 9:39
RED: Kerkman 2 run (Tremayne pass from Kerkman), 7:09
RED: Lee 9 pass from Kerkman (no PAT), :00
PASSING
(WHITE) Thramer 23-28-0, 351; (RED) Kerkman 11-17-0, 281; Bowers 7-13-2, 131.
RUSHING
(WHITE) Alex Thramer (O’Neill) 7-65; Hunter Pilakowski (West Point-Beemer), 14-53; Matt Hoffmann (Plainview) 12-35; Stone Kraft (Battle Creek) 1-6; (RED) Bryce Kerkman (West Holt) 11-74; Beau Bowers (Wayne) 2-9; Collin Tinker (Pierce) 2-6; Dalton Tremayne (Ponca) 3-6; Mason Lee (Wayne) 1-5; Quentin Moles (Bloomfield) 1- -5.
RECEIVING
(WHITE) Kraft 8-158, Cody Nelson (Boone Central/Newman Grove) 6-111, Nolan Kosch (Humphrey St. Francis) 4-54, Pilakowski 2-10, Pierce Eisenmenger (Humphrey St. Francis) 1-9, Justin Appleby (O’Neill) 1-6, Hoffmann 1-3; (RED) Mason Lee (Wayne) 10-255, Tremayne 5-94, Korrell Koehlmoos (Lutheran High Northeast) 2-6, Kelby Schaefer (Norfolk Catholic) 1-36, Shayden Neptune (West Holt 1-18, Ryan Jaixen (Wayne) 1-8.
TACKLES
(WHITE) Shayne Campbell (O’Neill) 7, Blake Heller (Battle Creek) 7, Greg Johnson (West Point-Beemer) 5, M.J. Montgomery (Norfolk) 5, Creston Bertschinger (Clearwater-Orchard) 4, Cole Hughes (West Point-Beemer) 4, Nolan Miller (Logan View) 3, Nathan Taylor (Logan View) 3, Beau Wilke (Stanton) 3, Micah Williams (Plainview) 3, Nelson 2, Marcos Quintero (Oakland-Craig) 2, Ashton Dohmen (Humphrey/Lindsay Holy Family) 1, Ryan Haskell (Madison) 1, Trevor Klabenes (CWCE) 1, Ryan Macholan (Howells-Dodge) 1, Jacob Polk (Logan View) 1, Caden Ranslem (Boone Central/Newman Grove) 1; (RED) Jaden Janssen (Crofton) 13, Jackson Eickhoff (Hartington Cedar Catholic) 8, Ashton Wragge (Pierce) 8, Schaefer 7, Neptune 6, Chace Clausen (Norfolk Catholic) 5, Kerkman 4, Seth Knapp (Lutheran High Northeast) 4, Lee 4, Noah Lamprecht (Wakefield) 3, Jared Hornback (Bloomfield) 2, Mason Lofquist (West Holt) 2, Justin Dean (Wayne) 1, Alex Kneifl (Hartington-Newcastle) 1, Levi Stecken (Creighton) 1, Tinker 1, Tremayne 1.