HUTCHINSON – When Southeast of Saline scored on the final play of last week’s Class 2A semifinal to pull out a 34-30 victory over rival Beloit to end a 19-year state championship game drought, Trojan coach Mitch Gebhardt called it “one of the more exciting games I’ve ever been involved in.”
 
It took all of one week for Gebhardt to have to search for a whole new set of superlatives after the Trojans topped their exhilarating semifinal stunner with an equally – or perhaps greater – shocker in Friday’s Class 2A state championship game against two-time defending champion Nemaha Central.
 
In fact, Gebhardt was left perhaps somewhat speechless after Southeast erased an eight-point deficit with less than two minutes to play in the game. Conjuring up another late-game miracle, the Trojans scored not just once, but twice in the last 1:51 with a scrambling Gannon Jacobson finding Tucker Thaxton streaking across the middle and connecting with him for a 29-yard touchdown pass with 11 seconds in the game that lifted the Trojans to an improbable 36-28 victory.
 
“The kids are just gritty kids who are going to keep fighting to the end,” Gebhardt said after initially struggling to find the words to describe what he just saw. “Whether we’re 40 points ahead or 40 points behind, the kids just keep playing hard.
 
“I just always felt like we had a chance.”
 
The championship was the second for Southeast of Saline, coming 19 years after the Trojans downed Silver Lake for the 2005 Class 3A state title in their only other championship game appearance. Southeast finished with a perfect 13-0 mark while Nemaha Central saw its bid for a three-peat denied as the Thunder finished with an 11-2 mark.
 
That three-peat seemed very much in order after Nemaha Central stormed back from a 20-7 halftime deficit to score 21 straight second-half points to grab the lead late in the fourth quarter. Every ounce of momentum in the game was on the Thunder sideline and when Carter Hajek capped a 16-play drive that only covered 56 yards with a 5-yard touchdown run with 1:51 left in the game, also adding the two-point conversion to make it 28-20, Southeast seemed to be in a tough spot.
 
Instead, the Trojans were anything but uncomfortable with their position.
 
“We were in the same situation last week and 1:51 felt like a lot of time compared to 42 seconds last week,” Jacobson said, referring to the Trojans’ semifinal situation where they had to go 79 yards in less than a minute for the win. “We just went out there and made plays.”
 
Thaxton agreed.
 
“We just had to go,” Thaxton said. “We just had to do what we had to do to get into the end zone.”
 
A short kickoff by the Thunder following Hajek’s touchdown set Southeast up at its own 40 and passes of 22 yards to Grady Gebhardt, 10 to Evan Watkins and 23 to Kanyon Douglass quickly moved the Trojans to the Thunder 5. Two plays later, Jacobson scored on a 4-yard run and just like that, Southeast was in position to tie it with 51 seconds left.
 
Two-point conversions hadn’t exactly been a sure thing for the Trojans in the title game with Southeast coming up short on its first two. But late in the first half, Thaxton converted one with a reverse run and needing to convert again to tie, Gebhardt put the ball in his senior’s hands again.
 
Instead of running it in, he pulled up and hit Malachi Hopkins with a short pass, tying the game at 28-all.
 
“He has the option on that to run it or throw it and luckily Malachi broke open there and he was able to see it,” Gebhardt said.
 
Hopkins came up big again the very next time he touched the ball. Southeast’s kicker, he executed a perfectly placed pooch kick toward the sideline that spun away from the Thunder up man on that side of the field. Kaden Barragan pounced on the loose ball for the Trojans and instead of having to try to stop Nemaha Central’s final drive, Southeast had the ball at the Thunder 31 with a chance to win it.
 
“We were trying to keep it away from their back guys,” Gebhardt said. “And we’ve done that a good portion of the year and we’ve gotten it a few times. Fortunately we got a good roll there and ended up with the football. Malachi hit a spot and we were lucky to have a guy there to get the ball.”
 
The play unfolded right in front of Nemaha coach Michael Glatczak and he could immediately tell how it was going to play out.
 
“I saw that spin on the ball and thought, ‘Oh, that’s not bouncing toward us,’” he said. “They made a terrific play and we couldn’t get a stop at the end.”
 
The Thunder nearly did get the stop they needed, though. Southeast gained just two yards on its first play and then Jacobson threw a pair of incomplete passes to set up a fourth-and-8 at the Thunder 29.
 
On fourth down, Jacobson rolled out to his right, but ran into Nemaha pressure and seeing nothing open, peeled back toward the opposite sideline. With Kanin Sudbeck bearing down on him, Jacobson threw back to his right to a streaking Thaxton, who broke a tackle at the 20 and outraced the defense to the corner of the end zone for the game-winning touchdown with 11 seconds left.
 
“I was like, ‘I’ve got to get to the end zone,’” Thaxton said. “I turned and saw KB (Barrager) get a block and then it was just a foot race to the end zone. I was pretty confident I could get there.
 
“I wasn’t thinking of me, I was just thinking of getting into the end zone to win it. I couldn’t have done it without everyone else around me. It was a team effort for sure.”
 

 
Jacobson said the play wasn’t necessarily designed to go the distance, but wasn’t going to argue with the result.
 
“I was just trying to get to an edge,” he said. “I knew we only needed nine yards; we didn’t have to go for a touchdown there. I got out of the pocket and saw Tucker coming across and hit him going the other way. I was just trying to get the first down and he made a play out there.”
 
Nemaha Central had two plays to try and come up with a miracle of its own in the final 11 seconds, but two passes by Hajek fell incomplete and the Trojans were able to celebrate the undefeated season.
 
“I don’t feel like we were every really uncomfortable,” Gebhardt said. “It’s always important to get a positive play on first or second down in those situations and we did, same thing we did last week. When you get that positive play, you get momentum going. I felt like we were pretty calm in that situation and knew what we had to do. With their gritty, keep-fighting attitude, I felt we had a chance.”
 

 
The way Southeast controlled the bulk of the first half, the need for late heroics wasn’t even in consideration. The Trojans needed only six plays to march right down the field on their first drive of the game with Jacobson scoring on an 18-yard run for a quick 6-0 lead.
 
After the Thunder answered right back with an 11-play drive capped by a 17-yard pass from Hajek to Jack Macke on fourth-and-3 to go up 7-6, Southeast hit a groove in the second quarter. Grady Gebhardt scored on a 1-yard touchdown run early in the period and after forcing a Thunder punt, he hauled in a 4-yard touchdown pass with 1:42 left in the half to put Southeast up 20-7.
 
Nemaha Central came up a half yard short of getting a big touchdown on the final play of the half, but went into the lockerroom facing their largest deficit of the season.
 
“Hats off to Coach Gebhardt; a phenomenal team,” Glatczak said. “They kicked our tails in the first half. But I was proud of our guys and how they stepped up in the second half. We got the turnovers we were expecting to get in the game and then some funky plays happened.”
 
Southeast had a chance to really make it tough on Nemaha early in the second half. Glatczak called for a fake punt on fourth-and-5 at their own 37 and the Trojans stuffed the play for a loss of yardage, taking over at the 34. Gebhardt immediately busted a 21-yard run to set the Trojans up at the 13, but Southeast couldn’t convert with two rushing plays losing four yards ahead of two incomplete passes.
 
That defensive stop seemed to jump-start the Thunder offense. Nemaha Central marched 83 yards in 13 plays with Hajek capping the drive with a 3-yard touchdown run to make it 20-13. Southeast then fumbled the kickoff and Nemaha recovered at the Trojan 44. Four plays later, Hajek hit Caleb Strathman over the middle for a 24-yard touchdown and just like that the game was tied.
 
Two plays into the next drive, Southeast fumbled again with Nemaha recovering at its own 44. Converting a fourth-and-3 midway through a 16-play drive, the Thunder took their last lead on Hajek’s 5-yard run and conversion run with 1:51 to go.
 

 
That merely set up Southeast’s furious finish that will go down forever in program history.
 
“We said all week we had to contain them and that’s easier said than done,” Glatczak said. “That’s hats off to (Jacobson) because we had him a couple times and couldn’t finish it.”
 
Jacobson finished the game completing 8 of 16 passes for 114 yards and two touchdowns and also ran for 85 yards and two scores. The junior began the season stepping in to fill a void in the Southeast offense with the graduation of last year’s quarterback Daniel Kejr.
 
He admitted the beginning was a little bumpy, but his confidence in being to handle the job never diminished.
 
“Week 1, I was a little nervous, threw a couple interceptions,” he said. “But after Week 2, I just kind of settled in.”
 
“Gannon’s a good athlete who continuously makes athletic plays,” Gebhardt said. “He’s gotten better form the beginning of the season to the end of it. Early on, I think he was forcing things but as the season progressed he let the game come to him. Extending plays like he can is just huge.”
 
Hajek once again carried the load for Nemaha Central, rushing 44 times for 234 yards and 2 touchdowns while also throwing for 114 yards and 2 touchdowns. He accounted for all but one yard of Nemaha’s positive yardage.
 
In capturing the program’s second state title, Southeast of Saline ran the gauntlet this postseason. The Trojans handled Norton – which spent six weeks ranked No. 1 in 2A – 34-7 in the second round of the playoffs before taking a 30-8 semifinal win over Hoisington, which had ended the Trojans’ season in the quarterfinals last year.
 
After taking down North Central Activities Association rival Beloit in the semifinals, the Trojans ended Nemaha Central’s two-year reign atop Class 2A.
 
“I felt like this team, we had a chance to do well in the playoffs,” Gebhardt said. “We played a lot of sophomores last year, five the whole year on defense. Experience-wise, our juniors weren’t typical junior and if we gelled on offense, we could make a run at it.
 
“We looked at that bracket and thought, ‘Holy cow.’ You talk about the good programs in 2A and 3A football for a long time, we played them in the playoffs. It’s just a great accomplishment for this group of kids.”
 

 
CLASS 2A CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
  
SOUTHEAST OF SALINE 36, NEMAHA CENTRAL 28
 
Nemaha Central (11-2) … 7 … 0 … 6 … 15 … -- … 28
 
Southeast of Saline (13-0) … 6 … 14 … 0 … 16 … -- … 36
 
Southeast of Saline – Gannon Jacobson 18-yard run (pass failed)
 
Nemaha Central – Jack Macke 17-yard pass from Carter Hajek (Levi Thomas kick)
 
Southeast of Saline – Grad Gebhardt 1-yard run (run failed)
 
Southeast of Saline – Gebhardt 4-yard pass from Jacobson (Tucker Thaxton run)
 
Nemaha Central – Hajek 3-yard run (kick failed)
 
Nemaha Central – Caleb Strathman 24-yard pass from Hajek (Levi Thomas kick)
 
Nemaha Central -- Hajek 5-yard run (Hajek run)
 
Southeast of Saline – Jacobson 4-yard run (Malachi Hopkins pass from Thaxton)
 
Southeast of Saline – Thaxton 29-yard pass from Jacobson (Evan Watkins pass from Jacobson)
 
TEAM STATISTICS
 
 … NC … SES
 
First downs … 21 … 15
Rushes-yards … 49-241 … 31-202
Passing yards … 114 … 114
Passing (Comp-Att-Int) … 12-18-0 … 8-16-0
Total plays-yards ... 67-343 ... 47-311
Fumbles-lost … 0-0 … 2-2
Penalties-yards … 5-30 … 6-72
Punts-Avg … 2-27.0 … 2-28.0
 
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
 
Rushing – Nemaha Central: Hajek 44-234, Seitz 3-1, Strathman 2-minus 2; Southeast: Gebhardt 17-99, Jacobson 11-85, Douglas 2-16, Thaxton 1-minus 3.
 
Passing – Nemaha Central: Hajek 12-18-0, 114 yards; Southeast: Jacobson 8-16-0, 114 yards.
 
Receiving – Nemaha Central: Strathman 6-63, Macke 3-28, Seitz 1-15, Koch 1-11, Thomas 1-minus 3; Southeast: Thaxton 3-53, Gebhardt 3-28, Douglas 1-23, Watkins 1-10.