By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
After rolling to two victories to begin their 2021 campaign, the Southeast of Saline Trojan football team will stay on the road this week looking for a seventh consecutive win over the Ellsworth Bearcats.
SES stifled a good Beloit team one week prior, holding the opposing Trojans to just 21 yards in the second half of a 36-6 victory.
“Defensively I thought our guys did a good job throughout that entire game,” Southeast head coach Mitch Gebhardt said. “We’re not comfortable offensively yet but we’re getting comfortable with some of the things that we know we can do.”
The Trojans will now turn their attention to a 1-1 Ellsworth team fresh off a 22-15 loss at the hands of Republic County last week.
“Ellsworth has a good football team,” Gebhardt said. “They’re very fundamentally sound and we’re excited for another big league game.”
The Bearcats, much like SES, rely on a balanced but run-first attack on offense, led by sophomore quarterback Will Cravens.
Cravens is joined in the backfield by running back Brad Vopat, who has averaged over five yards per carry throughout the team’s first two games.
“They’re going to try to play power run football and they do a good job of setting up RPOs off of that,” he said. “Coach Homolka does a great job coaching those kids to be fundamentally sound and to run to the football.”
Offensively SES took another step in the right direction last week, and continue to be dangerously multi-dimensional with six different Trojans finding the end zone through the team’s first two games.
Southeast couldn’t have asked for a more balanced offense, with 367 yards and five touchdowns through the air and 317 yards and six touchdowns on the ground in 2021.
Despite great production from the offense, the defense has been what Southeast has hung its hat on this season, allowing less than 100 yards per game of total offense and averaging three turnovers per contest.
That success on both sides of the ball has been reliant on a veteran-heavy wrecking crew doing great work in the Trojan trenches.
“Our game starts with our offensive and defensive lines and that’s been the strength of this team,” Gebhardt said. “We’ve got some real athletes there and our coaches have done a great job with that group.”
Kickoff between the Trojans and Bearcats is scheduled for 7pm at Ellsworth high school and as always the game can be heard on KINA (910 AM or 107.5 FM) or streamed on the Salina Post.