LINCOLN, Neb. - This year's NSAA C2 boys basketball state championship carried a bit of history with it - Archbishop Bergan completed a perfect run through the bracket by beating Cross County in the title game to become the first #8-seed to win a boys basketball state title since 2009.

The #8-seed Knights (19-9) had already taken down #1-seed Freeman and #4-seed Summerland in the C2 field just to get to Saturday's championship game, where they then had to take on #3-seed Cross County (26-3), which hadn't lost a game in 2025.


Trey Mooney and Bergan started strong, scoring the first nine points of the game, and the Knights led for the entire first half until a corner three from Kole Crawford gave the Cougars their first lead of the game, and a late layup from Sawyer Anderson gave them a 25-24 edge at halftime.


A Thatcher Hanson three tied the game at 30 exactly halfway through the third, but from there Bergan steadily began to take command, scoring eight of the final ten points of the third thanks to three buckets from Trent Mlnarik to take a 40-32 lead into the fourth quarter. Cross County remained within striking distance but could never pull back into the game: the Cougars led for only 2:16 of game time. and Finally, fast break buckets in the fourth from Gavin Baker and Cale Sheets secured the win, 53-43, for Archbishop Bergan.

That completes a highly impressive and overall improbable run to the state title: they're the first #8-seed to win a title in any class in 16 years, and they said they leaned into their historic run by learning from basketball history. Sheets said junior Nate Graver served as the team's resident basketball historian, regaling them with tales of underdog basketball teams from the history of the sport, which inspired them to add the Archbishop Bergan name to the list. 

"He gave us an underdog speech every day at practice, a story about some underdog team in the history of basketball. And really, we were writing our own is what we'd always be like - we're writing our own underdog story today," said Sheets, who capped off an excellent individual week with nine points and eight rebounds. "We got there to Norfolk Catholic - we wrote that one. And then we said more once we found out we were going to state."

"It's an amazing accomplishment. We're a team with nine losses. We're a team with no seniors. And I think after every single one of those nine losses, we found a way to learn something," Bergan head coach Ryan Mlnarik said, pointing to the team's loss to EMF in the subdistrict final as a major turning point ahead of this state tournament sprint. "The games that we lost really hurt, and I think we learned some things from every one of those games."

"We just struggled to make easy plays at times," said Cross County head coach Jimmy Blex, who follows a third-place finish in the state tournament last year with a runner-up finish this year. "With their length and athleticism, I think they're the handsiest, most physical team we've played all year. Coach has them ready to go, and they just fly around, and do a good job of just poking that ball out and frustrating you sometimes."

Mooney led all players with 16 points on 7-of-12 shooting with Baker just behind with 14 points and six rebounds for a Bergan team that shot 48 percent from the floor despite going just 2-of-13 from beyond the arc. Wyatt Hengelfelt was excellent for the Cougars in the tournament and finished off the week with a 12-point, 11-rebound double-double.

SCORING BY QUARTER:

Bergan: 14 | 10 | 16 | 13

Cross County: 7 | 18 | 7 | 11