Odegard named to All-State for boys cross country

Editor's note: The Pahrump Valley Times owned by the owners of the Las Vegas Review-Journal

Pahrump Valley sophomore Bryce Odegard was named to the second team All-State for boys cross country by a new program honoring the state's top high school athletes by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Odegard was named after finishing fourth in the Division 1-A state meet in 17 minutes, 34 seconds. He finished second in the Southern Region finishing in 17:49. He won six races during the season.

The start of the winter season for high school sports has begun. But at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, we're not done with fall sports season.

In fact, we won't be done with it until next summer.

Beginning today, we will display a page a day to honor the athletes we have selected as All-State honorees for what we call "Best of Nevada Preps." The nine-day series will continue through Dec. 27, when we announce our All-State Football team in two pages.

These All-State teams were selected by Prep Editor Damon Seiters and staff reporters Bartt Davis, David Schoen and Ashton Ferguson. They produce daily content for our high school sports site, NevadaPreps.com.

The Best of Nevada Preps won't stop there. We will present our All-State teams for winter sports — like boys and girls basketball — in April in similar fashion. And in early June we will announce our All-State teams for the spring sports, such as baseball, softball and track.

This project will culminate in mid-June with the Review-Journal's first Best of Preps Nevada Awards Banquet. The event, which will be held at a date to be announced, will feature a nationally known athlete who will be a featured speaker.

The best part is that the venue will be open to the public as we will honor the Best of Preps in Nevada in 2015-16. Each All-State athlete will receive free admission to the event.

First, we will unveil the All-State fall sports teams, which will run in this order in the print edition of the Review-Journal.

Already released were girls golf, boys tennis, girls tennis, boys cross country, girls cross country and girls volleyball.

Boys soccer will be released today, girls soccer on Saturday, and football on Sunday.

Odegard was the only Trojan named to any of the squads announced through Wednesday.

Bill Bradley is Sports Editor of the Review-Journal. He can be reached at bbradley@reviewjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @billbradleyLV. Pahrump Valley Times Editor Arnold M. Knightly contributed to this report.