Vote: Who should be SBLive’s Nebraska Athlete of the Week? (1/8/2024)

Here are the candidates for SBLive’s Nebraska high school athlete of the week for Jan. 1-7. Read through the nominees and cast your vote. Voting will conclude Sunday at 11:59 p.m. If you would like to make a nomination in a future week, email athleteoftheweek@scorebooklive.com. 

Editor’s Note: Our Athlete of the Week feature and corresponding poll are intended to be fun, and we do not set limits on how many times a fan can vote during the competition. However, we do not allow votes that are generated by script, macro or other automated means. Athletes who receive votes generated by script, macro or other automated means will be disqualified.

Madison Abbenhaus – Bloomfield Girls Basketball

Few outside Northeast Nebraska likely know about Abbenhaus, but it’s about time she starts to gain some notoriety around the state. The Bloomfield senior has three games of 30 or more points and achieved the third of those on Jan. 5 when she scored a season-high 33 points. Abbenhaus also has two other games with 29 and has scored 20 or more nine times in 13 games. She’s averaging 23 points per game and has a total of 677 points the last two seasons. She’s already 71 points away from surpassing last year’s total.

Maggie Fiene – Conestoga Girls Basketball

Fiene is on the doorstep of 30 wins and it’s not even the middle of January. The Conestoga sophomore is one win away after going 3-0 with three pins at the Malcolm Invite. Fiene jumped on her first opponent 10-2 then scored a pin in the second period, was up 10-2 again in the semifinals before another second-period pin then took gold in the final minute of the championship match after building a 9-2 advantage. Fiene is 29-0 with 21 pins and now has seven tournament championships.

Neleigh Gessert – Millard West Girls Basketball

Gessert makes the list for the second time this basketball season thanks to an MVP performance in the Metro Tournament championship game. The Millard West junior was both efficient and deadly, scoring 10 points on 10 of 14 shooting with four three-pointers and six rebounds. Gessert was excellent throughout the tournament, scoring 11, 27, 22 and 30.

Chloe Hanel – Clarkson/Leigh Girls Basketball

Hanel is in the final year of a varsity career that now has more than 1,500 points and 400 rebounds. Yet, even with that history, Hanel achieved a first on Saturday when she scored 30 or more points in back-to-back games for the first time. Hanel had 31 two nights after she had 33. In those two games, the Clarkson/Leigh senior shot 27 of 40, was 5 of 12 from long range, totaled 12 rebounds, 12 steals and seven assists.

Mya Hedstrom – O’Neill St. Mary’s Girls Basketball

Hedstrom had four games with 20 or more points before Saturday’s home game with McCool Junction when she made it five with a season-high 27 points. The St. Mary’s senior hit 9 of 12 shots, made both of her three-point attempts and had eight rebounds to go with eight steals. Hedstrom is averaging 18.3 points per game and a rather impressive 5.7 steals.

Miah Kenny – Grand Island Northwest Girls Wrestling

Kenny had a taste of the big stage and the ultimate spotlight when she wrestled for a state gold medal last season. Since then, the Northwest senior has been working to get back to that spot after settling for silver. Interestingly, she was also a runner-up at the Norm Mandstedt Invite. If that’s an indicator of things to come, there may be gold in her future. Kenny was back in Columbus at the Manstedt again this past weekend and came back for a tournament championship with four pins, three of which were scored in less than a minute. Kenny stands at 28-0 and with four tournament titles.

Britt Prince – Elkhorn North Girls Basketball

The current queen of hoops in the state added to her kingdom on Saturday when she became the all-time leading scorer in Class B with a school-record-tying 42 points. She passed former Alliance and Husker standout Jordan Hooper, who recently had her jersey retired at Pinnacle Bank Arena. Prince and the Wolves trailed Skutt by two at halftime then scored 18 in the third quarter during an Elkhorn North surge. Prince also had 27 points two days earlier against Treynor and stands at 2,088 career points and is 11th on the all-class list, 664 behind the record.

Ella Reeves – Battle Creek Girls Wrestling

Next to two state medals, Reeves captured what might have been the next best accomplishment of her career on Jan. 4 in Columbus. The Battle Creek junior successfully defended her championship at the Norm Manstedt Invite and improved to 24-0 with three pins and a 10-5 decision. The combined record of the opponents she defeated on the way to her sixth tournament championship of the season was 56-23. In the final, she defeated an opponent that was 19-1 before a pin in the second period.

Regan Rosseter – Westside Girls Wrestling

Rosseter is among the state leaders in wins and is near the top of those ranks with a perfect record as well. The Westside senior put her unbeaten season on the line at one of the most prestigious events of the season Thursday in the Norm Mandstedt Invite. Rosseter’s 130-pound bracket included another wrestler with an unbeaten mark and six others who have each won over 20 matches. None of them could compare to Rosseter who won three times by pinfall and twice by decision, the final a 7-2 victory against a foe that was 18-0 before the match.

Gabby Twarling – Hay Springs Girls Basketball

Twarling is averaging over 15 points per game and fills up the stat sheet every night. But it was a Jan. 4 win that stands out as her best game so far this year. The Hay Springs senior scored more than 20 for the second game in a row, had 21, hit 9 of 16 shots and had her first double-double with 10 rebounds. Twarling also added seven steals and three assists. The last time out in a win over Banner County, she scored a season-high 28 points and had another seven steals.

Treyson Anderson – Pius X Boys Basketball

Anderson has scored at least 18 points in every game this season and is shooting 63%. Simply put, he’s been unstoppable. Most recently, he’s played in a pair of back-to-back games but hasn’t been slowed by that workload. Anderson scored 24 and was 11 of 12 shooting in a Jan. 5 win over North Platte and had 19 on 8 of 12 shooting the next night against Columbus. Those two games follow a back-to-back against Southwest and Southeast in which he scored 22 then 18 and shot a combined 13 of 22.

Dillon Claussen – Creighton Prep Boys Basketball

Claussen has been really good over the past five games, posting all three of his 20-point performances while shooting 64%. Over last weekend he had back-to-back games with more than 20 when he scored 27 against Bellevue East while shooting 65% then scored 22 on 8 of 10 shooting in a win over Westview. Claussen also had double-doubles in both of those games with 10 rebounds in the first game and 11 in the next.

Nixon Farmer – Elkhorn Boys Basketball

Elkhorn looks scary good in Class B following a 9-1 start. The emergence of Farmer would make the Antlers even more formidable. After easing into the season through the first month including a 17-point game against Waverly in the second game, Farmer has his first back-to-back 20-game performances of his career. The Elkhorn sophomore scored 23 in a win over Plattsmouth then followed it up with 21 in a victory over Boys Town.

Coriahnn Gallatin – Fremont Boys Basketball

Gallatin was nominated for AOTW several times last year during a freshman season in which he averaged 18.8 points per game and had 11 with 20 or more points. He makes his first appearance on the list for 2024 after scoring 24 in a win over Lincoln East and posting his fourth game in a row with at least 20 points. Gallatin was 8 of 14 and hit six three-pointers. During the four-game stretch with 20 or more points, he averaged 21.5 points per game, shot 28 of 59 overall (47%) and was 19 of 37 from beyond the arc (51%).

Jaden Jackson – Bellevue West Boys Basketball

Jackson was his team’s top scorer in the Metro Holiday Tournament final on Jan. 3, scoring 22 points while shooting 8 of 13 and hitting three threes. Jackson also had seven rebounds and seven assists a night after he had eight assists in the tournament semifinals. Outside of a slow start in the tournament opener because of limited playing time, Jackson had totals of 15, 17 and 22 in the final three games.

Hayden Schmit – David City Boys Wrestling

Schmit knows what it's like to wrestle the best. The David City sophomore made a run to the state title match as a freshman but came up just short in the Class C 106-pound state title match. Since then all he’s done is start his second year in the program unbeaten and with four tournament titles. His biggest came on Saturday when he won the Norm Manstedt by going 6-0 and defeating two Class A wrestlers. Schmit won the final 5-4 with an escape in the third period and earned the victory over a state runner-up from last season.

Sebastian Sauceda – Shelton Boys Wrestling

The reigning Class D 113-pound champion doesn’t look like he’s interested in releasing his grip on the crown anytime soon. Sauceda, also a state third-place medalist, has opened up his senior year 23-0 and wasn’t forced into wrestling a full six minutes until the 17th match of the year. Overall, Sauceda has 16 pins and two technical falls in his 23 wins. Saturday at Amherst, he won with two majors and a pin for his sixth tournament gold of the season.

Josh Sheard – Gross Catholic Boys Wrestling

Sheard is looking to end his varsity career with a bang after a pair of trips to state the past two years without any medals. Thus far he’s setting himself up for a big finish following a 20-0 start and four tournament championships. He won his fourth on Saturday at Beatrice when won four matches, two by pin and closed the day with a decision over a foe from Class A. He now has 10 pinfalls and tournament wins at Fremont, Bellevue West, Wahoo and Beatrice.

Kevin Stubblefield – Westside Boys Basketball

Stubblefield has been a superstar for Westside each of the past two years, scoring 15.6 points per game last year and over 16 this season. The Warrior senior has had double digits in every game except for one but had yet to eclipse 20 points until he put up 25 in a win Jan. 6 over Elkhorn South. Stubblefield hit 9 of 12 and was 3 for 4 from the perimeter. Stubblefield is hitting on 61% of his shots this winter and is 39% from beyond the arc.

Wyatt Tramp – Crofton/Bloomfield Boys Wrestling

Tramp came into the weekend with gold medals at O’Neill and Crete plus a perfect record when he took the mat at Central City. The Crofton/Bloomfield junior kept the momentum rolling with four more wins and three falls. Tramp pinned two opponents in the first period, defeated a Class B foe 4-3 in the semifinals then built a 9-0 lead before finishing off the gold with a third-period fall. Tramp has 14 pins and sits at 21-0 as the season turns to the second half.