Student-athletes from nearly 250 schools across the state are being honored by the Lincoln Journal Star for Academic All-State.

For Lincoln Northeast seniors Annie Nguyen, Brianna Roenne and Sidney Yant, tennis could often make staying on top of classwork challenging.

“I considered Nebraska strongly, but I’ve always been a big believer in the 40-year plan, not the four-year plan."

For Lincoln Southwest’s Lindsey Blehm, the coronavirus affected more than her final high school track and field season.

The Spartans were team-driven en route to a Class A runner-up finish in 2020. The sum of parts approach shows academically, too. 

His teammates have been pegged with Division I basketball offers, and his sister graduated high school in three years. 

The all-state senior football player and boys 100- and 200-meter state champion knows attending Princeton goes far beyond the athletic spectrum.

Eleven players on the Southeast boys soccer team were selected for Journal Star Academic All-State honors, seven of which have 4.2 GPA or higher. 

Led by Morgan Maly, all five starters on the state champion Crete girls basketball team also excelled in school and two other sports.

Like she does in the batting cages, Carly Dembowski puts in the extra time on the assignments to break slumps in the classroom.

13 Southwest baseball players received academic all-state honors — a number that is a source of pride for head coach Mitch Vernon.

Fillmore Central’s Halle Theis knows both athletics and academics will be tougher in college, but Theis up for the challenge.