The 2023 KSHSAA football season technically started with practices on Aug. 14, just three short months ago.

But for Gardner Edgerton, the 2023 campaign started 364 days ago, on the same field at Emporia State’s Welch Stadium where this year’s Class 6A state championship football game was played on Saturday between the Trailblazers and the Derby Panthers.

“I told them our season started on this field last year,” said Jesse Owen, Gardner Edgerton football head coach. “At the end of that game when we watched that other team celebrate.”

Gardner Edgerton ended up one play, a failed two-point conversion attempt in overtime, away from winning the state title last year. Instead the Trailblazers watched that other team, Manhattan, hoist the state trophy into the air after the game.

From that moment, the Trailblazers started putting in the work to make sure that they would secure another post-Thanksgiving trip to Emporia and flip that result from the 2022 final.

Gardner Edgerton did just that, overcoming an early two-touchdown deficit against Derby on the way to a 22-19 victory over the Panthers and securing the Trailblazers’ first football state title in program history.

Gardner Edgerton junior quarterback Bravin Powell had one word to describe the feeling of getting the job done on the team’s return trip to the state final.

“Unreal, it’s the only word to describe it,” Powell said. “It feels great to be able to do it for the first time for this community, who puts so much into our program and cares about us so much.”
 

Powell played a huge role in the team’s 12-1 season and championship-winning performance. He scored all three of the team’s touchdowns and converted a two-point conversion as Powell went for 105 yards on the ground and 104 yards through the air against Derby.

“He’s the general on offense, man,” Owen said. “He’s the engine that makes the vehicle move and he did a great job and I’m proud of him.”

Powell really got that engine moving during a stretch in the middle quarters where Gardner Edgerton turned a touchdown deficit at halftime into a two-score advantage early in the fourth quarter.

Powell scored the second of his two rushing touchdowns with a 27-yard run on the first play of the fourth quarter. He followed up by running in the two-point try, giving his team a 22-13 advantage.

Derby would score again to cut the lead to just three points, but ultimately that would just set up a late Gardner Edgerton drive to ice this snow game. Facing a 3rd and 7 at the Derby 24-yard line, the Trailblazers needed one more first down as the Panthers ran out of timeouts with under two minutes to play. 

Powell ran a QB keeper off the left tackle, running into a wall of Derby players just past the line of scrimmage. But he kept his feet moving, allowing time for his teammates to join the scrum and help push him forward near the first down marker before the referees blew their whistles.

Powell said his final lunge to try and seal this state final in regulation was entirely inspired by last year's finish at state.

“The only thing in my head was thinking about being right over there, two yards from the end zone last year,” Powell said. “That’s all I needed.”
 

Powell said he kept his feet moving, knowing his teammates would run up to power him forward for the first down.

“Get me to where I needed to be,” Powell said. “I was going to keep powering through to make sure we got it and put the game away for good.” 

The chain gang needed to trudge their way onto the snowy field for a measurement, but the Trailblazers final push proved enough to earn the new set of downs. Gardner Edgerton’s offense went into the victory formation and Powell took a couple knees in the snow to run out the clock.

Early in the game, Derby seemed to be the team more prepared to weather the literal (snow) storm. Derby senior running back Derek Hubbard and junior wide receiver Da’Saahn Brame seemed to be the only players who were immune to the snow’s speed-reducing effects.

Hubbard took off down the left sideline on the Panthers’ first possession, just barely getting tackled out of bounds as he reached the red zone. Derby followed up with a senior quarterback Braxton Clark finding Brame along the same sideline as Brame scored on a 18-yard touchdown reception.

Both teams spent the next 12 minutes of game time failing to find their footing on offense. Gardner Edgerton’s best drive as the game reached the midpoint of the second quarter was reaching the Derby 41, thanks to a sizable gain by senior running back Dylan Butash, who spent most of the previous quarter running dives into the teeth of the Panthers’ defense for 1- and 2-yard gains.

But put in a third-and-long situation, Powell tried to thread a pass to senior wide receiver Randy Singleton deep down the field. Powell got the ball over the outreached hands of a Derby defensive back, but Singleton was not able to haul in the pass.
 

After Gardner Edgerton punted the ball away, Derby’s offense got on the move quickly. Hubbard delivered a couple big running plays, including a 7-yard rushing touchdown to expand the Panthers’ lead to two scores. Gardner Edgerton senior defensive back Eli Porter did block Derby senior kicker Grady Jesseph’s extra point attempt, keeping the score at 13-0 with under six minutes left in the half.

Owen said his team had a tough time getting its footing early, in terms of running, cutting and blocking in the snowy conditions.

“They kind of helped turn it into a mosh pit by cutting us up front,” Owen said. “But you what, we’ve played in bad conditions before and we feel okay doing that. The weather’s never an excuse.”

The Trailblazers started to show that the weather would not be a problem when they quickly responded to Derby’s second score.

Butash and Powell reeled off back-to-back runs for first downs to put the Trailblazers into the red zone. Powell finished off the drive with a 5-yard QB keeper. On that play, which the Trailblazers ran often this year, Powell made a smooth, slow-motion spin move where he turned 315 degrees practically in-place before quickly lunging forward off of the left guard.

“It's designed for us to flip,” Powell said, shrugging off any notions that the way he performs the play stands out from how other quarterbacks would make that move. "All of us look different, so it's going to be a little different the way I do it than other quarterbacks ... That's up to you guys to decide if you think that's a me thing or not."

Derby tried to score before halftime, but Gardner Edgerton forced a stop in the red zone in the final minutes of the second quarter. Trailblazers senior defensive end Mark Debiak sacked Clark to force Derby into a fourth and 17 at the 19-yard line. Debiak would also get a strip sack on Clark during Derby's final possession.

Debiak said getting to the quarterback to make a play was as simple as knowing that he needed to start going faster.
 

“I knew I was waiting too long and Coach told me I just got to go,” Debiak said. “The play before, Coach said, ‘Hey, Mark, gotta go. Gotta speed it up.’

“So I sped it up and got the sack.”

Derby tried to co-opt the “gotta go” strategy, turning down a chance for a short field goal and instead going on fourth down to try to close out the second quarter with a touchdown. Clark took a shot to Brame in the end zone, but Singleton knocked the ball away to prevent the score.

The Trailblazers felt no pressure to try and close the gap before halftime, opting instead to kneel the ball and head into the locker room trailing by six points. 

“It was still a one possession game and in elements like this, you’re one bad snap away from tying it up, just like that,” Owen said. “You certainly don’t want to rush anything and commit unforced errors, so to speak.

“You want to stick with who you are and what’s gotten you here. Over the course of 48 minutes, just kind of see how it plays out.”

After both teams traded a few drives that stalled early, Gardner Edgerton was finally able to take advantage of sticking with the game plan, and take advantage of Derby keying in on the Trailblazers’ rushing attack. Gardner Edgerton started by picking up a first down with a pitch to senior running back Griffin Martin, followed up by Butash slipping his way past defenders up the middle on an 8-yard run.
 

On the next play, Powell fooled the defense into thinking Butash would get the ball again using the same play. Instead, he quickly turned back around from the play-action fake to see senior wide receiver Colton Hawkinson streaking down the field completely uncovered. Powell connected with Hawkinson in stride for a 65-yard touchdown pass.

With so much room for Hawkinson, it might have been tempting for Powell to put a little more loft on the ball, giving his receiver a little more margin for error and possibly avoid him losing his footing while sprinting through the snow. 

Powell decided there was no need for that.

“I had full trust that he was going to put that in the end zone and that’s exactly what he did,” Powell said. “That was great momentum for us. You could really see on Derby’s faces when we scored that touchdown. They knew we weren’t going (away).”

To set up Gardner Edgerton's final touchdown, it was a defensive stop that flipped the field position in the Trailblazers favor and gave the offense a short field.

The Panthers thought they were in a good spot after Derby freshman Arieus Finley took the ensuining kickoff all the way back to the 49-yard line.

But Derby quickly found themselves in third-and-long. Then Gardner Edgerton’s crowd turned up the volume and ended up causing the Panthers some issues. Derby suffered four pre-snap penalties before ultimately punting on fourth and 19.

With the Panthers now forced to kick the ball away, Debiak fired past Derby’s upback on the way to blocking Jesseph's punt. Debiak had previously run into the punter early in the third quarter, although Derby declined the 5-yard penalty in favor of pinning the Trailblazers at their own 5-yard line.
 

This time, Debiak got the coach’s blessing to give that another try.

“Coach was calling return, then he finally called punt block,” Debiak said. “He told me I could go, so I did my thing.”

Jesseph recovered the ball, but Gardner Edgerton still took over possession on Derby’s 30-yard line. Powell would take off for his final touchdown run a few plays later.

After Gardner Edgerton completed its stretch of 22 unanswered points, Derby finally responded with a scoring drive on their first possession of the fourth quarter.

Derby marched down the field, setting up a 4-yard touchdown pass from Clark to Hubbard. Derby went for two on the point after try, but Gardner Edgerton deflected Clark’s pass across the middle. 

With the 22-19 lead, the Trailblazers held on for the final nine minutes to clinch the state championship.

For Owen, it felt a little poetic that Debiak would end up with two big plays to help get Gardner Edgerton win this program’s first state title. Debiak transferred to Gardner Edgerton this season after previously playing for Spring Hill, but the history he has with his head coach goes back much further than just this season.

Debiak’s dad, Jeff Debiak, played linebacker for Olathe North in the mid-90s. In addition to winning the 1996 Buck Buchanan award, the older Debiak played alongside Owen as they helped lead the Eagles to that program’s first state title that same year. 

“It’s almost fate that Mark gets a chance to help us win our first state championship in this school’s history, 20-whatever years later,” Owen said. 

Owen talked with Debiak about that shared history prior to the state championship game and about how this was the moment for the younger Debiak to claim his own share of Kansas football history.

“That’s what we talked about yesterday,” Debiak said. “I came here and it was just my time and he said I had to shine, so that’s what I did tonight.”

Powell dedicated this state championship to the seniors from last year’s team.

“This was all for our seniors last year that we couldn’t bring it home for,” Powell said. “As soon as that game was over, we knew that was going to be our motto. ‘Go Beyond.’

“We knew we had to go past where we thought we needed to go and that’d take us to wherever we wanted. That was this state championship and that’s what we did.”

This year’s senior class that got to finish their high school careers with state titles includes Debiak, Butash, Singleton, Hawkinson, Martin Elijah Porter, Cameron Porter, Mason Shoemaker, Daryus Williams, David Torres Rivera, Grant Ellis, Spencer Easley, Landon Dugan, Eithan Kodger, Dawson Kindler, Thomas Savasten, Jimmy Tellez-Munoz, Mathieu Reimer, Gabriel James, Kolton Coons, Serge Otiankouya, Ethan Whittley, Kristopher Markos, Blake Weese, Max Nichols and Edward Espinoza.