After the Blair Bears' first record-setting race of the Class B-2 District Championships, coaches couldn't help but laugh at the seemingly absurd time cut that had taken place to achieve it.
The second school record set tickled them, too, as it was more than four decades in the making.
Then, by the third, the Blair girls had long sealed a dominant district title win with 164 team points. They bested second-place Elkhorn North by 54 Thursday at Krantz Field.
“Everyone, individually and as a team, supports each other and helps each other out,” sophomore Hailey Amandus said when asked what makes coach Bryan Soukup's girls lineup so special. “And we're all getting better during the season as a team.”
Overall, the Bears' girls and boys teams combined for more team points than any other school in attendance Thursday. Twenty-two BHS athletes punched their tickets to Friday and Saturday's NSAA State Championships at Omaha Burke Stadium. It was a dominant showing led by a record-breaking sophomore, Amandus, and four-event champ Reese Beemer.
“Four-by-8 started us off really good,” Amandus said. “That got me really confident the whole day.”
In total, the sophomore was involved in all three BHS school-record efforts during the district meet. The first was the aforementioned 3,200-meter relay — the 4x800.
Amandus, her sister Kaitlynn, Reece Ewoldt and Makayla Baughman finished their eight laps in 9:36.91, breaking the previous, 33-year-old mark by more than 8 seconds.
Next up, Amandus bested Laurel Biffer's 1978 record in the individual 800 run. She was second in 2:21.07, besting the 43-year-old school mark by 0.73.
“It was the hardest,” the sophomore runner said, noting the nerves she was feeling going into the race. “I was running with one of the girls from Elkhorn, I think, and just pacing myself and doing the best I could.”
Lastly, to cap the meet, Amandus, Makayla Baughman, Schuyler Roewert and Reece Ewoldt finished second in the 1,600-meter relay with a time of 4:04.44 — a BHS-best mark last accomplished in 1988.
Beemer's 400 relay team — which notched its own school record time earlier this season — won their race in 50.17 seconds. Her state-qualifying teammates were Abby Osborn, Grace Galbraith and Erika Roehrs.
The event win was Beemer's last of four. The freshman also earned gold medals in the long jump (17 feet, 2.75 inches), the 100 dash (12.52 seconds) and the 200 dash (26.02).
Roehrs, meanwhile, added her own event win for the BHS girls in the 300 hurdles, finishing in 47.41 seconds. She, like Galbraith (100 and 200 dash), Hailey Baker (discus and shot put), Sami Cemer (100 hurdles and pole vault), Ewoldt (400 dash), Mary Roskens (high jump), Chloe Schrick (3,200 run) and Tessa Villotta (100 hurdles), will represent the Blair girls in an individual event at the state meet.
Nolan Slominski is among the Bears who'll compete on the boys' side at Burke. He was a member of the district-winning 3,200 relay team with Zach Keeling, Nick Wayman and Mason Bell, but also won the individual 800 despite the amount of energy he was short after the hard-fought relay win.
“Luckily, I was able to run a really good time,” he said. The sophomore finished his two laps in just 2:01.37.
The BHS boys lineup is considerably smaller than the girls' with about 20 less team members, but it still qualified eight athletes for the state meet.
“We had what, 69 points today?” Slominski said. “So, we all did very well. We averaged, like, four or five points a person, which is insane, really.”
Senior Gage Casanova qualified for state in the 400-meter dash, while Dawson Fricke will compete in both the 1,600 and 3,200 runs. Seagan Packett-Trisdale earned his way with a second-place finish in the discus, while Lance Hume claimed his Class B spot in the shot put.
When it was all said and done, all 22 state qualifiers and their BHS teammates posed for photos on their home track. Parents snapped pic after pic, and the Bears celebrated a dominant day at Krantz Field.
