By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
The Southeast of Saline football team continues to steamroll its schedule following a 52-16 beatdown of the Hillsboro Trojans last week that moved the needle to 6-0 for a sixth straight season.
It was a slower-than-usual start for the Trojans, but Southeast picked things up in the second half, cruising for another comfortable win.
“Hillsboro presented some problems for us,” SES head coach Mitch Gebhardt said. “They’re a good football team with a lot of athletes, and they played good football, but I thought our kids came out and got better again last week.”
With just two weeks remaining in the regular season, it's getting to be crunch time in district play, and tonight, SES can put themselves on the doorstep of another district title when they travel to Halstead to slay the Dragons.
At 0-2 in district play, Halstead and Lyons are already out of the running in District 6, leaving SES (2-0), Ellsworth (2-1), and Hillsboro (2-1) as the three still in striking distance.
While the Trojans certainly have grander aspirations, a district title is the first step on the long path to a state title defense, and the next step of that requires a win over Halstead this evening.
The Dragons have not looked like their teams of old, falling to 1-5 with their lone win of the year coming over the 1-5 Nickerson Panthers.
Despite those struggles, Southeast is not looking past its week seven opponent, especially in a place that has not always been so friendly to the purple and white.
“Halstead has played a tough schedule, and I think as we’ve watched film on them, they’ve gotten better,” Gebhardt said. “We also need to get better and we need to continue to improve this week.”
Southeast may be a bit short-handed in this contest, but will receive no sympathy from a Dragon squad desperate to save their season.
“Every time we play Halstead, they’re physical,” he said. “We’ll have to match that. They run the football well but I think our speed will present problems for them. We need to take care of the football, play good, aggressive defense, and play well on special teams.”
Kickoff is scheduled for 7:00 at Halstead High School. Tonight’s game will be streamed live on our Salina Post Sports Network with live video and broadcast commentary. It can also be heard on KINA (910 AM/107.5 FM)
You can watch the full broadcast of this game on demand any time below.