Gretna avoids major upset, beats Lincoln Southeast in Class A first round

Gretna quarterback Zane Flores took pictures with fans. Many of the defensive linemen — who struggled early but finished fiercely — sat exhausted on a chilly metal bench.

Round one of the Class A playoffs featured a much tighter than the top-rated — and second-seeded — Dragons ever expected. They beat Lincoln Southeast 27-24 Friday night, but needed four quarters to seal the win. The Knights, who beat just one playoff team in the regular season, scored first and hung in the center of the proverbial ring, prompting the question: Was Gretna surprised?

“I’d be lying if I said no,” said defensive end Korver Demma, heading to Nebraska as a walk-on. “But we should have known this was going to be a dogfight in the playoffs.”

In front of an estimated 3,500 fans, it was definitely a dogfight. Pigskin ping-pong in the first half. A defensive scrum — featuring one field goal for each team — in the second half. Gretna’s defensive front — challenged, Demma said, by their coaches at halftime — surged to eight sacks of Lincoln Southeast quarterback Owen Baxter, who riddled the Dragons over the first 18 minutes only to get drilled, repeatedly, in the final 2½ quarters.

“We stayed a little lower up front, we played a little bit better with our defensive front and we got pressure on the quarterback,” Gretna coach Mike Kayl said. “The first half we were getting some pressure on the quarterback, but he’s a shifty athlete. We just weren’t finishing the plays.

Baxter effectively dueled Flores, the Oklahoma State commit, to a draw in the first half On the Knights’ first scoring drive, Baxter hit all three passes before scrambling 19 yards through the Dragons’ defense for a score; he’d later break off 18-yard option keep for a score and hit a wide-open Henry Woods for a 33-yard touchdown pass.

Gretna (10-0) leaned on a 71-yard kickoff return from Tyson Boganowski — which set up a short Riley Egenberger touchdown — and forcing two first-half fumbles of Buettenback. The Dragons turned the second of them into a trick play touchdown when Boganowski took a quick backwards hitch pass from Flores, then found Blayke Moore for a 29-yard score to knot the game at 21 with 9:13 left in the second quarter.

“As soon as I saw the play on the card, I started getting all happy,” Boganowski said. “It’s really fun to come out here and have those things in your back pocket.”

After three straight Gretna sacks thwarted a…