SABETHA – Even as Nemaha Central racked up shutout after shutout this season, Holden Bass knew the ultimate test was coming.
 
“This week was really important for us,” the senior lineman said of Friday’s Class 2A No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown with arch rival Sabetha. “This was going to show us how good our defense was. They’re a phenomenal team.”
 
Which made the Thunder’s seventh straight shutout all that more satisfying.
 
Smothering Sabetha’s potent offense from kickoff to the final gun, Nemaha Central made an emphatic statement about its potential to win a second straight Class 2A state championship. The Thunder completely took away anything and everything the Bluejays threw at them in rolling to a 28-0 victory in the KSHSAA Covered Game of the Week.
 
“They dominated the line of scrimmage and took away what we wanted to do,” Sabetha coach Garrett Michael said. “When you do those two things, I don’t care who you are or who you play, it’s not going to turn out good and it didn’t turn out good for us tonight.
 
“Hats off to Carter (Hajek, Nemaha Central’s quarterback). Hats off to their O-line. Hats off to their defense. They played an all-around good game, they were the better team tonight and they beat our rears.”
 
The convincing win was Nemaha’s 21^st straight and wrapped up not only the Class 2A District 4 title but also the Big Seven League championship in the league’s final year of existence. Next year, the Big Seven and Mid-East Leagues will merge to form the Big East League.
 
“Last year set the table and this year we’re playing well,” Nemaha Central coach Michael Glatczak said. “Sabetha’s a great team and overall our kids played excellent tonight.”
 
Nemaha Central (8-0) will play host to Pleasant Ridge (2-6) to start the playoffs next week while Sabetha (7-1) will play host to Atchison County (4-4).
 
Since giving up a touchdown to Holton in the season opener, Nemaha Central hadn’t allowed a score since, a string of 24 straight quarters going into Friday’s showdown. That included solid tests from Minneapolis (24-0) and Riley County (30-0) the past two weeks.
 
But with Sabetha matching every strength Nemaha Central possesses – great size, physical approach, stout defense, strong running game – that streak figured to get tested. And when Sabetha came out and quickly got a first down on its first possession after opening the game with a defensive stop of the Thunder, well, the challenge was on.
 
Or so it seemed.
 
Instead, the remainder of the game was a challenge for the Bluejay offense. Nemaha Central’s defensive line led by Bass and fellow seniors Abe Hilbert and Josh Gonzalez wreaked havoc, making countless plays in the Sabetha backfield and stymieing the Bluejays’ vaunted ground game.

Sabetha finished with just 9 first downs and 127 total yards, including just 67 on the ground.
 
“We came in knowing they were going to get first downs, they were going to make big plays,” Bass said. “Especially a team as well-coached as Sabetha. They have phenomenal athletes and they’re bigger than us on the line.
 
“All week we talked about, ‘How badly do we want to keep that goose egg? How badly do we want to keep that zero points streak allowed?’ … This week was going to be the ultimate test on how good we are on defense and we did a good job. There’s still tons of room to improve and those are adjustments we’ll make in the postseason.”
 

 
Sabetha’s defense was nearly up to the challenge as well. After stopping the Thunder on their opening possession, the Bluejay defense had plenty of big moments of its own.
 
After Nemaha got the game’s first touchdown on a Carter Hajek 6-yard run with 20.4 seconds left in the first quarter, Sabetha found its back against the wall when Hajek picked off Bluejay quarterback Marcus Bauman near midfield on the first play of the second quarter and returned it to the Sabetha 14.
 
But the Bluejays stiffened. A fourth-down pass from the 6 into the end zone fell incomplete and neither team could do much the rest of the half as Nemaha took a 7-0 lead into halftime.
 
The second half, however, belonged to the Thunder. Hajek hit Caleb Strathman for a 19-yard touchdown pass to stake Nemaha to a 14-0 lead through three quarters and the Thunder got a pair of touchdowns in the first six minutes of the fourth quarter – an 11-yard tackle-breaking TD run by Hajek and a 58-yard scoring sprint by Strathman – to beak the game open.
 

 
All that remained was whether the Thunder could secure the shutout. Sabetha crossed midfield once, but never got into the red zone and the Thunder recorded its seventh straight shutout.
 
“The last two weeks, Minneapolis and Riley County, kind of woke us up a little bit,” Glatczak said. “They’re very good teams and we weren’t clean offensively but defensively still played well. Tonight, offensively we started well – kind of had a hiccup after that turnover where we could have put some points on the board – but overall, our kids played excellent tonight.
 
“A lot of kids stepped up. It wasn’t about the all-stars, it was about the X-factor kids, those role players that really stepped up tonight. I was a little nervous about the moment because only four or five of these kids really played in this rivalry game last year, but we had a number of different kids step up.”

Hajek finished with 146 yards on the ground with the two touchdown runs, while also throwing for 51 yards and the score. Strathman had a combined 125 rushing and receiving yards.
 

 
NEMAHA CENTAL 28, SABETHA 0
 
Nemaha Central (8-0) … 7 … 0 … 7 … 14 … -- … 28
 
Sabetha (7-1) … 0 … 0 … 0 … 0 … -- … 0
 
Nemaha Central – Carter Hajek 6-yard run (Federico Turrisi kick)
 
Nemaha Central – Caleb Strathman 19-yard pass from Hajek (Turrisi kick)
 
Nemaha Central – Hajek 11-yard run (Turrisi kick)
 
Nemaha Central – Strathman 58-yard run (Turrisi kick)