By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
For the eighth time in his career, Mitch Gebhardt has led the Trojans to a 3-0 start to their season. This time around the accomplishment came with a 42-0 rout of the Ellsworth Bearcats.
Ellsworth struggled to do much of anything with the ball, as the Trojan defense held them to under 200 yards of total offense en route to the team’s second shutout of the year.
Southeast has not allowed an opponent to score since the second quarter of their week one win over Minneapolis.
“It’s just the will of the team,” Trojan safety Jaxson Gebhardt said. “We don’t want anybody to score on us and any time we can keep a zero up on the board for them it’s a good game.”
While his defensive effort was good, Gebhardt lit up the scoreboard at quarterback, completing 13 of his 17 passes including a touchdown to Eli Harris. Gebhardt also carried the team in the rushing game, racking up 145 yards and three touchdowns on 16 carries.
In addition to the undefeated start, Southeast of Saline also locked up the NCAA title tonight as Republic County fell to Minneapolis 20-14.
The Trojans have owned at least a piece of the league title in each of the last three seasons and in six of the last seven.
Southeast got the scoring started with a seven yard Gebhardt touchdown run on their first drive of the game.
After fumbling the ball away on their very next drive, the Trojans hit the gas and never looked back, scoring on their next four consecutive possessions.
Those scores included two more touchdown runs from Gebhardt, one from Matthew Rodriguez and the aforementioned hookup between Gebhardt and Harris.
Add to that an electric 79 yard punt return for a touchdown by Michael Murray, and you arrive at the Trojans 42 point total in a statement win.
“It feels really good to go 3-0,” coach Mitch Gebhardt said. “We still have work to do but I feel like our kids responded to what we wanted to do this week and it showed.”
Southeast will look to keep things perfect next week on the road in Russell. The Broncos fell to 0-3 after a heartbreaking 34-28 double-overtime loss at the hands of Norton this week.
You can listen to the full postgame interview with Coach Gebhardt here