East Bests West in All-Star Games

The annual East/West Football and Volleyball games were held in Scottsbluff over the weekend, and the East teams continued their dominance, winning both the Football and Volleyball games.

The football game needed to be moved up twice, first to 5 p.m. from its original kick-off time then to 11 a.m as late afternoon/early evening thunderstorms were forecast for the area.

The game started as a defensive battle between the teams, as both offenses struggled to maintain any momentum and the defenses played well. But the East offense started to break through as McCook's Adam Duggar started to connect with his receivers and broke out big runs for yardage. The East team started to pull away, with a big offensive highlight being a 65 yard pas from halfback Wes Geiken of Gothenburg to Jase Carpenter of Lexington.

After going down 21-to-0, the West finally got on the board with a touchdown pass from Scottsbluff's Braeden Stull to Perkins County's Ethan Sihm with time winding down in the second quarter. That was all the scoring the West team would muster as the East offense scored twice more in the second half on their way to a 35-to-7 victory over the West. The victory gives the East team a 27-17-1 series lead over the West team. Broken Bow's Connor Wells earned Defensive Player MVP and McCook's Adam Duggar was named Offensive Player MVP.

The West Team had a number of Cheyenne County standouts on the roster including Justin Ernest and Jakob Kruse of Leyton, Austin Roelle of Sidney and Luke Kasten of Potter-Dix. Kasten did not play in the game due to injury. Potter-Dix's Dale Frerichs was the head coach of the West Team.

The Volleyball All-Star game was a much closer contest, taking five sets to crown a winner. The West team took the first set 25-to--23, then the East struck back with a 25-to-13 second set victory. The East went up 2 sets to one after taking the third set 25-to-16, but the West hung in and took the fourth set 27-to-25. This set up the fifth set to determine the winner, and a four point service run by Gothenburg's Emily Cornwell was the difference in the final set, giving the East team a 15-to-12 fifth set victory for the three sets to two match win.

Area athletes playing for the West team were Sidney's Reese Riddle and Rheagan Stanley. Stanley ended the match with 41 digs. Scottsbluff's Leslie Foral was the Head Coach of the West Team. Emily Cornwell of Gothenburg was named MVP of the East Team and Tamika Eastman of Sioux County was named West team MVP.