By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The Southeast of Saline Trojans (1-0) will travel to Beloit (0-1) on Friday for the first all-2A installment of the Trojan War since 2019.
SES has owned the series recently, winning the last four bouts with Beloit, including a resounding 36-6 victory at home last season.
“This has always been a big game,” Southeast head coach Mitch Gebhardt said. “It was before I was here and it will continue to be after I’m gone. We’ve had some awfully good battles over the years and Beloit has always had a good football team.”
The headlines coming into this week-two duel look a bit different than expected after Beloit fell to Ellsworth 14-6 in their season opener, less than a year removed from an appearance in the 2021 2A state championship game.
Despite that week one hiccup and their recent struggles in the series, SES is still giving Beloit the utmost respect and attention coming into this league battle.
“Their run game is really good and they have several kids back from that state title run team,” Gebhardt said. “They’re well coached and they want to win. They’ve got a strong defensive line and a lot of really good pieces on both sides of the ball.”
On the Southeast side of things, the Trojans will ride into week two on the heels of a 38-26 victory over Rock Creek, in which SES found their identity and owned the ground, racking up 314 rushing yards against the Mustangs.
“I was proud of our kids and the way we came out in the second half,” he said. “We let Rock Creek score before the half and they had some momentum going with the ball back but we responded to that well. We still have a lot of things to work on but I thought we played really well in that second half.”
Regardless of the positive result achieved in week one, Southeast took this week to look within and will be eager to put what they’ve learned in practice to the test on Friday against a familiar foe.
“We need to clean up a lot of little things,” Gebhardt said. “We gave up too many yards on special teams and that can be a game changer. Defensively we need to make sure we get to the right places and arrive with authority and offensively we need to do a better job of playing to the whistle.”
While Beloit still represents a dangerous 2A presence, the formula for beating them was established last week by another league opponent in Ellsworth, and SES will look to replicate the Bearcat’s success this week with their own brand of physical football.
“We talk about doing your job and not trying to be superman,” he said. “If you’re trying to do too much and you give them an opening they're going to exploit that and if you want to stop their downhill run game you have to be assignment sound. Our kids understand what they want to do, now we just have to match their physicality and take it a step further.”
Kickoff of the Trojan War is set for 7 pm at Beloit High School. As always the game can be heard on KINA (910 AM or 107.5 FM) or streamed with live video on the Salina Post.