When Josh Schaffart ran down the final stretch of the 3.1-mile state race at Gans Creek, the North Platte senior looked up at the clock and couldn’t hold back a smile as he took sixth place overall with a sub-17-minute time and helped the Panthers with their best state performance in school history on Nov. 5.
North Platte head cross-country coach Brendan Cary, above left, presents the Class 2 All-State medal to senior Josh Schaffart, above left, after he finished in sixth place at the state meet at Gans Creek on Nov. 5.
The senior has been on the verge of all-state – which is the top-25 runners in the state race – in each of the last three years, finishing in 30th place his junior year and 31st place his freshman year when North Platte was still in Class 1. Schaffart was 91 seconds shy of being an all-state runner his sophomore year and has worked his entire high school career for a top-25 finish.
“Twice I’ve come in like 30th and I’ve been reaching for these spots this year,” Josh Schaffart said. “I was ranked 32nd coming in and it was a tough race, but I got sixth so I’m proud of my team and proud of who pushed me to be here.”
Schaffart jumped out to a solid start but still had to fight his way to the front – passing junior teammate Noah Heckman in the process – and narrowly finished in less than 17 minutes. The top North Platte runner crossed the finish line in 16:59.9 on a day that had unideal running weather with chilly temperatures.
“You really have to get into a mindset and try to ignore the weather the best you can. I was really focused and was happy about where I was the whole race. I started good and ran good the whole race, so I focused more on the next guy in front of me instead of the weather,” Schaffart said.
Before this season Heckman was the only all-state cross-country North Platte runner, so Schaffart made history in his last career race. The team also made it into the history books on the day, finishing in fourth place overall to bring home the first state banner ever.
“I can’t even say how excited I am for those guys to have this experience and to be able to come here on a day where conditions aren’t great.” North Platte head cross-country coach Brendan Cary said. “They just didn’t bat an eye and said let’s go and do what we came here to do, and they did.”
Before this season, the Panthers hadn’t had a ton of success at the state level, but they have been improving in the recent years. This fall, North Platte finished as KCI Conference and Class 2 District 4 Champions for the first time in program history.
Josh Scaffart trailed junior teammate Noah Heckman in the Class 2 State Race before the senior turned on the wheels to finish in sixth place overall with a time of 16:59.9 on Nov. 5.
“It was just a great feeling the whole year of just knowing that we could trust these guys. We talked about doing our job and trusting our teammates to do theirs,” Cary said.
Heckman added to his collection of medals with his second consecutive Class 2 All-State award by finishing in 19th place with a time of 17:27.2. The freshmen duo of Drake Keraus and Hunter Palmer were tight together in 68th and 73rd places, finishing with times of 18:34.2 and 18:38.6, respectively.
“We talked about release the outcome; if you do what you can do and you finish back in the pack, but you did the best you can do, then great. If you’re the front of the pack, great, you just have to control what you can control, and they did that today and they took care of business,” Cary said.
Mark Humes was the next North Platte runner to complete the 5K, doing so in 19:03, and Waylon McCracken in 20:55. When freshman Jackson Cassity finished with a time of 23:21.4, the Panthers officially clinched the fourth-place spot out of 16 teams with an average time of 18:08.58 and 158 points.