State softball Day 1: top four seeds all advance in Hastings

HASTINGS, Neb. — All 12 first-round games at the 2026 NSAA State Softball Championships are final, and every No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 seed advanced on Wednesday, Oct. 14, at the Bill Smith Softball Complex. Lincoln Southwest beat Lincoln East 14-6 in five innings, Hastings topped Wahoo 9-1 in six innings and Ashland-Greenwood edged CCV 8-7 in the 4:30 p.m. games (NSAA bracket sheets, retrieved Oct. 15, 2026).

The top seeds set the tone early. In the 9:00 a.m. games, No. 1 seeds beat No. 8 seeds in all three classes. Class A's Millard North beat Elkhorn North 16-1 in three innings, Class B's Gretna East beat Beatrice 18-9 in six and Class C's Kearney Catholic shut out Yutan/Mead 10-0 in five. Later, No. 3 seeds Gretna and Bishop Neumann also won comfortably. Gretna beat No. 6 Skutt Catholic 11-6 at 2:00 p.m., and Bishop Neumann beat No. 6 Fort Calhoun 12-4 in five innings (NSAA Class A sheet, Class B sheet, Class C sheet, retrieved Oct. 15, 2026).

The No. 4 vs. No. 5 games were the tightest of the day. At 11:30 a.m., Millard West edged Papillion-La Vista 5-4 in Class A, Northwest beat Crete 8-7 in Class B and Hastings St. Cecilia beat DC West 2-1 in Class C. Northwest's 8-7 is the official score on the NSAA Class B sheet. A 1011 NOW list on Oct. 14 initially showed 9-7 (NSAA Class B bracket sheet, retrieved Oct. 15, 2026; 1011 NOW, Oct. 14, 2026).

In the 2:00 p.m. Class A game, No. 3 Elkhorn South needed eight innings to get past No. 6 Omaha Westview 6-5. No. 2 Lincoln Southwest, No. 2 Hastings and No. 2 Ashland-Greenwood beat No. 7 Lincoln East, Wahoo and CCV in the late games.

St. Cecilia, the defending Class C champion, won on a walk-off. The Hastings Tribune reported Emerson Kissinger pitched the complete game with six strikeouts and Ella Musalek scored the winning run on Johanna Selvage's line drive (Hastings Tribune, Oct. 14, 2026).

Thursday: 2:00 p.m. start, games back to back

NSAA changed Thursday's schedule after consulting the National Weather Service. First games now begin at 2:00 p.m., per the NSAA bracket sheet (NSAA bracket sheet, retrieved Oct. 15, 2026, 12:10 p.m. CT), and later games follow on a rolling schedule with each starting about 30 minutes after the previous game ends, and teams get an abbreviated pregame of a 10-minute field warmup and a plate meeting. NSAA said any further changes will be posted on its social media and nsaahome.org (NSAA weather update, Oct. 14, 2026).

The winners bracket has some marquee games. In Class A, Millard North meets Millard West and Elkhorn South plays Lincoln Southwest. In Class B, Gretna East faces Northwest and Gretna meets Hastings. In Class C, Kearney Catholic takes on Hastings St. Cecilia and Bishop Neumann plays Ashland-Greenwood. Six teams face elimination: Elkhorn North vs. Papillion-La Vista, Omaha Westview vs. Lincoln East, Beatrice vs. Crete, Skutt Catholic vs. Wahoo, Yutan/Mead vs. DC West and Fort Calhoun vs. CCV (NSAA bracket sheets, retrieved Oct. 15, 2026).

Championship games are Monday, Oct. 19, at Bowlin Stadium in Lincoln: Class C at noon, Class B at 3:30 p.m. and Class A at 7:00 p.m. (NSAA Softball Championships HQ, retrieved Oct. 14, 2026).

Innings are listed only where NSAA's results data marks a shortened or extra-inning game. Follow brackets on the NEB Preps softball state tournament hub.