“We just wanted to run together,” Fremont boys head coach Sean McMahon said. “There’s nothing special about running super fast times in districts.”

The Tigers finished with all five counting runners in the Top 10 and all seven runners in the Top 15.

Fremont’s 25 team points finished well above Omaha Westside’s second-place score of 54 points. South Sioux City grabbed the final qualifying spot for the district team with a third-place finish, three points ahead of Elkhorn South.

Gonzalez took the race hard through the first mile and then switched to cruise control for the final two miles, clocking a 15:39.20 to win his second straight district crown.

“I relaxed a little bit the last mile or two, after kind of simulating the first mile, to get an idea of ​​what I’m going to do at state,” Gonzalez said. “I didn’t want to keep the pace too high the rest of the way, just relax and enjoy it.”

With Gonzalez on his own, Noah Miller battled it out with Omaha Westside’s Conor Gross for second place.

Gross edged Miller by two seconds, 16:23.80 to 16:25.30, putting the Tiger in third place.

Michael Nichols added a fifth-place finish in 16:32.50, followed by Jase LaDay in sixth place 10 seconds later.

Mason Nau rounded out Fremont’s counting times with a 17:06.30, good for 10th place. Aden Soto and Raymond Rise finished back-to-back in 14th and 15th place in 17:17.0 and 17:18.7, respectively.

It was Fremont’s first time running on the Walnut Creek course in the backyard of Papillion-La Vista South High School. The Tigers played at Papio South during the 2020 season, but this year the setup was in a different part of the ground.

“It was a little difficult to determine the lay of the land, especially with 30 mph winds,” McMahon said.

Heavy winds were blowing through the upper part of the course, but most of the running took place on narrow trails in a heavily wooded area that blocked the wind.

“I liked how our kids navigated that,” McMahon said. “Sometimes a massacre happens on a narrow path with twenty bodies and they have dealt with it very well.”

Giving Fremont their ticket to state gives the Tigers a chance to win a fourth state title in a five-year span, which hasn’t been done since Lincoln Southeast did it between 1984 and 1988 — the Knights were also dethroned after three consecutive titles then came back to get their fourth.

Gonzalez is going for his third straight individual state championship.

“We know that in the end, if we are there for each other and fight for the right reasons, it will all work out the way we want it to,” Gonzalez said.

The Class A boys race will take place at Kearney Country Club on Friday, October 25 at 12:30 p.m.

For the first time in seven years, the Fremont girls cross country team will not be represented in Kearney at the state meet.

The Tigers finished seventh in the team standings with 207 team points and no individual finishers in the Top 15.

“There was a lot of growth, not just over time, but in their spirit and the way they raced and that’s what we wanted to see today,” said Fremont co-head coach Beth McMahon. “They were able to compete at a different level than before.”

Zoe Kenney was the first Tiger to cross the finish line, taking 35th place in 23:23.30.

Maddie McBratney finished 40th in 24:09.30 in her final cross-country race as a Tiger.

Yuridia Avalos Samaniego passed at 24:44.10, followed by Charlotte Ganzel in 44th (25:02.0) and Jordyn Vachal in 45th (25:02.50),

Samantha Mulliken added a 47th place finish in 26:05.

Fremont is expected to return six of their seven varsity runners next fall, with McBratney the lone senior of the bunch.

“I think the offseason will be a good growth period for us,” Beth McMahon said. “We will definitely get back together in the track season and then it will be good for us to have some rest to get the mileage up.”