By Jeremy Obermeyer
Salina Post Contributor
The Southeast of Saline Trojans traveled to Halstead on Friday night to clash with the Halstead Dragons in an effort to remain undefeated.
Despite coming into the contest with a 1-5 record, Halstead did not back down.
The Dragons used a little trickery on the first drive of the game, drawing first blood on a 62-yard halfback pass for a touchdown to Noah Diehl for the game’s first score.
That was immediately followed by a successful onside kick off attempt, giving Halstead the ball back for their second drive of the game.
The next scoring attempt was thwarted, however, as Tiernan Ptacek intercepted a Halstead pass.
In his starting debut at quarterback, Ptacek then engineered a 6-play, 71-yard drive, capped off by a 7-yard Grady Gebhardt touchdown run, as the Trojans took custody of the lead for good in their 55-14 victory over Halstead.
Southeast scored two more touchdowns in the opening quarter courtesy of Gebhardt to lead at the end of the quarter by a score of 20-7.
Southeast put the exclamation point on the scoring with three of their four second-quarter touchdowns coming in the final 3:10 of the quarter, highlighted by a 67-yard pick-six from Bryson Lippold to lead 48-7 at the half.
Each team added one more touchdown in the second half, giving the Trojans the victory as they move to 7-0 on the season.
Gebhardt paced the Trojans with 85 yards and 3 touchdowns on 14 rushes, and 143 yards and 2 touchdowns on 2 receptions.
Ptacek completed 8 of 11 passes for 266 yards and 4 touchdowns, while throwing just 1 interception.
Southeast will close out the regular season by hosting Ellsworth next Friday, as Halstead falls to 1-6 and will travel to Lyons.
You can watch this game any time on demand below.