With the regular season coming to a close, fall sports at Southeast of Saline still have much to look forward to, especially Southeast of Saline’s varsity Football team. The Trojans are thrilled to push into the playoffs tonight as they are set to face the Clay Center Tigers, after a dominant regular season in which they went 7-0. There has been a lot of buildup to tonight’s game, as the promising senior class has overcome the difficulties brought on by the pandemic through strong leadership. Tonight, that leadership is expected to continue.

Although the scores of the games leading up to tonight’s contest might indicate that the Trojans have not faced a lot of adversity so far in the season, those who have been following the program know better. The team has dealt with injuries to valuable players, as well the restrictions and difficulties of COVID, causing the game against Goodland to be cancelled. However, coach Mitch Gebhardt stated in an interview with the Salina Post that having some time off was actually somewhat of a positive turn of fate, as some of his players “who were dinged […] got a little time to heal.” A few of the injuries that the team has had to deal with include injuries to seniors Bryant Banks (MCL) and Eddie McVay (Hamstring), yet both players have worked hard to continue playing despite their injuries and will be featured in tonight’s game. 

Clay center is sporting a 4-4 record going into tonight’s playoff game, compared to the Trojan’s 7-0 undefeated regular season. Although this could be an opportunity for the Trojans to underestimate their opponent, this sort of scenario has played itself out already this season and the Trojans have responed accordingly.  In other words, the Trojans are used to being favored in the games they’re going into. Therefore it stands to reason that the Trojans will be focused going into this game, despite being predicted to win by twenty points (maxpreps).

A win tonight would mean that the Trojans would either take on the Marysville Bulldogs, or the Eagles of Colby High School, depending on the winner of those two teams as they face off against one another tonight on Marysville’s home turf. The Trojans have previously played Colby, winning 32-8, but have yet to play Marysville this season. Either way, the Trojans will need to secure the win tonight and continue their impressive streak.