High school basketball fans got an early holiday treat on the final day before the moratorium as the Skutt Catholic boys, No. 2 in Class B in the NEBPreps Coaches Poll, traveled to Ashland Tuesday to face Class C1 No. 2 Ashland-Greenwood.
The Bluejays used a strong fourth quarter to pull out a 60-53 win and will head into the break with a 6-0 record.
An open date in the Bluejays’ schedule and a connection between the two head coaches — Jacob Mohs and Kyle Jurgens — led to the teams squaring off in the cross-class battle between reigning state champions.
“We were high school teammates, so we’ve chatted back and forth over the years,” Mohs told NEBPreps. “He texted in, I don’t know, September, and said, ‘Hey, do you want to play before the break?’, and we had a game open. We know what we’re getting when they say that. We know this is an absolute dog fight, slugfest, 32 minutes of madness, and so we saw it as an opportunity to give our guys a chance to see what they’re capable of. They rose to the occasion and really answered the bell, because that’s a tremendous team.”
Mohs and Jurgens both played for Dan Moore at North Platte High School. Moore, the long-time coach who retired from coaching at Papillion-La Vista in 2023, made the drive out to Ashland to watch his former pupils face each other.
“Anytime we can get Coach Moore in the building, I think both of us love that,” Mohs said. “He’s the reason I got into coaching, is I just loved my high school coach. It was like, ‘This is this is so cool, I want to do that. Can I do it to his level?’”
After coaching the Bluejays to a state championship in three of the last four years, it’s safe to say Mohs has done Moore proud, and Ashland-Greenwood has the look of a team that is very much capable of adding more hardware to that trophy case come March.
The star of the show on Tuesday was senior Derek Tonjes, a 6-foot-5 forward who finished with a game-high 21 points on 9-of-10 from the field and 3-of-5 from the free-throw line. He added five rebounds and four assists, accounting for an additional 10 points. Tonjes set the tone from the opening whistle, producing the team’s first 14 points — nine by himself and another five with a pair of assists. His body control and touch around the basket are phenomenal, using a flurry of crossovers, spin moves and up-and-unders to create opportunities for himself.
His biggest bucket came with less than three minutes to play after the SkyHawks had trimmed a seven-point deficit to two at 50-48. Tonjes found his way to the rim for a layup, making it a two-possession game and hitting the 1,000-point mark for his career.
“We said there was going to be a lot of Super Bowls this year coming off a state championship. Coach said it was a slugfest and it really was.”
Class C1 No. 2 Ashland-Greenwood took down Class B No. 2 Skutt Catholic 60-53 as Derek Tonjes finished with 21 points. #nebpreps |… pic.twitter.com/di2bG8gKRs
— nebpreps (@THEnebpreps) December 24, 2025
“When he’s focused and on offensively and plays within himself, he’s a really tough guard,” Mohs said. “I know he knows he can score it; we all know that. You don’t get to 1,000 points and not be able to score the ball. He’s a good passer, and that’s an area of the game that we want him to develop and work at. He made a few of them tonight, because we challenged him and try and set him up in those situations. So just evolving and being a great basketball player. Everybody knows he can score. He can score the ball, he’s great at it, and we want to challenge him defensively and creating offense for our team and those things.”
Tonjes’ strong start powered Ashland-Greenwood to a 14-11 lead early, but once he sat down for a breather the SkyHawks took advantage, finishing the quarter with a 7-2 run. Skutt led 18-16 after one and 28-26 at halftime, then pushed that advantage to five early in the third quarter at 33-28.
Then senior Cal Kissinger took over. After going scoreless in the first half, the Concordia commit took over with nine points in the third, sparking a 13-3 run that he capped with a step-back 3 to beat the shot clock buzzer. He added four more points in the fourth to finish with 13, six rebounds and two blocks.
“I think we have so many options,” Mohs said. “We tell our kids we’re super talented, so when it’s not your turn or your night, you don’t have to force it. And up to this point, we’ve forced it in every game, and when we just take a great shot, when we create a great shot for our teammate, good things happen. Tonight was a great example of that, and I thought Cal did a great job of just letting the game come to him.”
Skutt junior Lucas Heller ended Ashland-Greenwood’s run by banking in a 3 to pull the SkyHawks within two heading into the fourth, 41-39. However, the Bluejays opened the final period with a 7-2 run to build a seven-point lead and withstood a couple rallies from the SkyHawks to secure the victory.
“We just had to maintain our composure,” Mohs said. “We talked early before the game, they’re going to hit shots and make a run. You’re not going to come out and just lead from start to finish. That was not what we were thinking. We knew that would not happen, so we had to respond to all the answers. They hit the 3 in the fourth quarter, we looked silly chucking it out of the gym two or three times. It was always next play and respond and don’t let that carry over.”
In addition to the 34 combined from Tonjes and Kissinger, the team’s leading scorers on the season, the Bluejays got eight points apiece from senior Landon Mohs and juniors Barrett Kitrell and Jack Johnson. The 6-foot-5 Kitrell, a lineman on the football field, scored five points in the fourth and shot 2-for-5 from 3 in the game, and he and the 6-foot-3 Johnson took turns guarding Skutt’s 6-foot-9 center George Ziebell.
“That’s what makes Skutt so good, in my opinion, is they had four guys at nine [points per game] and the big at 14, and so you have to guard everyone,” Mohs said. “We’ve really challenged our guys to be somewhat similar. We know Cooper [Westerhold] and Derek and Cal are going to be the scorers for the most part every single game, but we’ve got to have the other guys knock down 3s, drive and finish, cut and finish and get some points here and there. It’ll open things up for the other guys.”
Ziebell, an Augustana commit, finished with 20 points, nine rebounds and three blocks. Heller added 15 points on 5-of-10 from the field (4-of-8 from 3) and 1-of-2 from the line. Junior Jett Samson chipped in nine points and seven rebounds. However, the Bluejays held Skutt to 42.3% from the field to hand them their second loss of the season.
Five of Ashland-Greenwood’s first six games were against Class B teams, including one over No. 10 Wahoo last Thursday. Skutt has been the Bluejays’ toughest test yet, and having to deal with the size and skill of a player like Ziebell should serve the team well heading into the rest of the season.
“It’s great to learn this stuff now,” Mohs said. “I think that’s one reason we wanted to play this game is because we were able to learn so much in December. If we don’t get this game, we’re still kind of unsure of a lot of things, but the guys just raised their level of play and standard, and now that’s the expectation. Sometimes they don’t like it when we as coaches hold them to that high level and high standard, but that’s just the way it goes.
“When you prove what you’re capable of, we want you to play to your potential every game.”
