Southeast of Saline comes back on Cheney, improves to 11-0

CHENEY, Kan. (Catch it Kansas) - Southeast of Saline was not only unbeaten entering their sectional playoff game with fellow 10-0 club Cheney, they had only trailed once all season. But in this one, they were down 14-0 before ever touching the ball on offense.

But after that slow go of it, the Trojans pieced things together, taking advantage of Cardinal turnovers to come back and advance in the class 3A playoffs with a 34-28 win.

The Cardinals quickly scored one the first of Harrison Voth’s three touchdown passes to Luke Grace, then went into their bag of tricks to recover a pooch kick and take right back over. That led to the second Grace score and an early 14-0 lead.

Things went from bad to worse for SES on their first drive when Luke Gebhardt threw an interception, setting Cheney up with a short field and a chance to go up three scores. But the Trojans returned the favor, recovering a high snap in the redzone to thwart the scoring drive.

The Trojans finally got on the board in the second when the Gebhardt twins connected for a 27 yard score, Luke finding Jake to cut it to 14-8. Cheney answered with the third touchdown pass to Grace to make it 21-8, but the Trojans got those points back to make it a 7 point halftime deficit on a second Gebhardt touchdown strike.

The Trojans kept the momentum going into the second half, recovering another bad snap on a punt and scoring on a Matthew Rodriguez rush the next play, but again Cheney would answer. Voth this time found Dayton Higgs for a long score to give them a 28-20 lead.

But late in the third, the Trojans finally knotted things up. Gebhardt hit his back Rodriguez out of the backfield who took it 19 yards, the two point try evening things at 28. Then the Trojans captured the lead for the first time, Gebhardt taking a keeper 33 yards for the score that put them over the top and they didn’t look back.

SES will now play host to the two-time defending 3A champions Andale next Friday night, both squads sitting with 11-0 marks.

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