🏈 Trojans begin playoff portion of state title defense against Mustangs on Thursday

By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post

If you’ve watched Southeast of Saline football over the years, you’ve seen a program steadily marching toward an ultimate goal.

After a rough 2017 campaign, 2018 and 2019 were about returning to the playoffs and winning playoff games.

As the team improved, 2020-2023 were about establishing themselves as true contenders and competing with some of the best teams in the state.

Then, in 2024, the dam broke, and the Trojans marched into the 2A state championship game, pulled off an unthinkable comeback, and staked their claim to a second state title over a Nemaha Central juggernaut.

In 2025, Southeast finds itself in a new position, with a sizable target on its back, and everyone in the state looking to take them down and prevent a repeat title run.

The regular season was all business for SES, as the Trojans rolled to a sixth-straight undefeated 8-0 start, a sixth-straight uncontested league title, and a sixth-straight district crown.

While in a traditional year, Southeast would receive a test or two, this year the games weren’t even close as the Trojans won those contests by a combined score of 447-77.

No one has held SES to under 50 points this season, and the Trojans haven’t allowed more than 16 points in a game since week one.

Now, Southeast turns its attention to a playoff run that begins this Thursday against Southwestern Heights, standing five wins away from a repeat state title.

“We always want to 1-0 every week but with our goals everything goes in stages,” SES head coach Mitch Gebhardt said. “We want to be league champs, we want to be district champs and then every week of the playoffs presents a new challenge for that week. When we get that far we’d also like to be state champs but we can’t do that without going 1-0 against Southwestern Heights.”

It’s been tough sledding for the 2-6 Mustangs, who played a brutal regular-season schedule, and now find themselves in the path of one of the best teams in the entire state in round one.

Much of what Southwestern Heights does revolves around quarterback Omar Mercado, who has done his best to keep the Mustangs above water all season long.

“They’ve played a really tough schedule but they’re seasoned and they have a quarterback who does a really great job running the ball and throwing it,” Gebhardt said. “Defensively they get a lot of guys to the football so we’ll have to be ready come kickoff.”

The winner of this game will play the victor of a showdown between 6-2 Russell and 4-4 Cimmaron next week.

Tonight’s game will be broadcast on KINA (910 AM/107.5 FM) and can also be streamed live on Salina Post below.