By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
As high school football around the state of Kansas heads to the semifinal round, just 24 11-man teams remain alive.
Among these remaining programs are two defending champions in Mill Valley and Andale, three runners-up in Derby, Maize, and Inman, and several Kansas football dynasties both new and old.
14 of these programs have won a state title, and 14 have appeared in at least one state championship game since 2010. Only six have never played for a state title before, while ten have never unfurled a state football banner in their history.
This week, there will be just three matchups that feature a pair of teams that have not played in a championship since 2010, and one of these games will take place in Kingman, where the Southeast of Saline Trojans will travel to take on the Eagles.
While SES and Kingman have arrived at the same destination with similar numbers, the paths these two programs walked to get here are drastically different and should make for one of the most interesting matchups in the state tonight.
In the Mitch Gebhardt era, which began in 2010, Southeast of Saline has amassed a record of 93-37, becoming a force to be reckoned with as the team bounced between 3 and 2A.
The Trojans slowly but surely built their program into what it is today, culminating in a three-year run with a 32-2 record, a quarterfinal appearance, and now, back-to-back semifinal appearances.
Last year, the Trojans made their deepest playoff run since their 2005 state championship season but were stopped short by an Andale juggernaut, leaving Southeast with unfinished business.
Kingman’s rise, while just as impressive, has been much more rapid. The Eagles named Tanner Hageman head coach back in 2019, where he immediately turned the team around, leading them to their first winning campaign since 2014 in just his second season.
By 2021, the Eagles were a force to be reckoned with, soaring through the playoffs to a semifinal berth against Beloit, despite having won just one playoff game in the previous 17 campaigns.
That run was the longest in Kingman since their lone state championship appearance in 1972, but Beloit closed the book with a narrow 22-19 victory, leaving Kingman with unfinished business.
One of these teams will advance to their first state championship in over 15 years.
For SES, that would mean an opportunity to notch a second-ever state title, for Kingman, a chance to chase their first.
One could make the case that to the teams involved, this game means more than almost any other being played tonight, and on paper, this should be one heck of a battle.
The Trojans enter this contest ranked second in scoring offense (49.1 PPG), Kingman ranks fourth (42.0).
SES has held their opponents to the third-fewest point totals this season (9.5 PPGA), a category where the Eagles have the best marker in Class 2A (5.1).
Both teams have remained skillfully balanced on offense, wearing teams down with their running game before gashing opposing secondaries with the pass, and both offenses start with incredible quarterback play.
Despite all of this, it’s still business as usual in the Southeast locker room, where the focus remains, as it has all year, on finding a way to go 1-0.
“I think our mentality of 1-0 has been big for us,” SES head coach Mitch Gebhardt said. “Every week really has been very important to us to continue to improve and to get better. That started in the first week of practice and it’s continued every week since. Every week presents its own situations that you have to deal with but our kids have handled it all well so far.”
As the Trojans have built a new contender off the work of those who departed last season, SES has looked more and more formidable with each passing week, something that has not been lost on the Trojan coaching staff.
“We’ve seen a ton of maturity in the postseason and that’s really where I think we’ve grown the most,” Gebhardt said. “We were maturing throughout the regular season and we had plenty of guys back from last season but we also had a lot of guys had didn’t see many downs and those guys really stepped up and helped us to grow as a football team.”
That maturity will be tested this week against arguably the best team the Trojans have seen since last year’s semifinal.
The SES defense will have to find an answer for do-everything signal caller Nolan Freund, who leads the team with 1,826 passing yards, 800 rushing yards, and 36 total touchdowns, wrecking opposing defenses in 2022.
“Kingman’s quarterback is really good both at running and at passing the ball,” Gebhardt said. “They’ve got a lot of options to get the ball to and their linemen do a great job of blocking for those guys. Defensively they get a lot of people to the football and they read things very well.”
To answer that call, SES will need a big night from their own deadly dual-threat Luke Gebhardt, who has posted similar numbers with 2,274 passing yards, 819 rushing yards, and 30 total touchdowns.
“Having a good passing game against a team like this is important but we do emphasize both pretty heavily,” he said. “We want to be strong on the ground and in the air and that balance is vital to what we do. Defenses will give you things sometimes that you need to take advantage of, it’s up to us to find those things and go make plays.”
Despite all the stakes of this semifinal matchup, Southeast refuses to waver from the mentality that got them this far, and will have a similar message once again this week.
“Regardless of what might be ahead this really is just another opportunity for us to go 1-0,” Gebhardt said. “We’ve talked about that for a lot of years and we’ve really emphasized it again this season. Our focus has been on getting better in practice so we can take our best selves to Kingman.”
Kickoff between the Trojans and Eagles is set for 7 pm at Kingman high school with the winner advancing to the 2A state championship game to take on 11-0 Nemeha Central or 9-1 Sabetha.