Millard South’s defense allowed a Papillion-La Vista South touchdown in the game’s first minute and then didn’t allow the Titans much of anything the rest of the way.
The Class A No. 2 seed Patriots kept the No. 7 Titans off the board for the final 47 minutes and rolled to a 41-7 win in Friday’s state football quarterfinal at Buell Stadium.
“They did a great job swarming the football,” Millard South coach Taylor Mendenhall said of his defense. “They bent but didn’t break.”
Millard South will host No. 3 Millard North in the semifinals. That game will be a rematch of the season-opening game, which the Patriots won 35-34.
After the opening Papillion-La Vista South touchdown, Millard South (10-1) forced seven punts, stopped the Titans on downs twice and forced a turnover while limiting them to 157 total yards.
The Patriots tied the game at 7-all on their first possession of the game. Aidan Marshall capped the drive with a 40-yard touchdown run. He took the handoff up the middle and cut to the far sideline for the score.
Millard South stopped the Titans on downs on their next two drives, with each coming deep in Patriot territory. The first stop came at the Millard South 29-yard line, and the second came at the Patriot 5-yard line.
“We practice that all the time in our third down challenge, goal line challenge,” linebacker Hudson Hanover said of the fourth-down stops. “We do that every day. We’re used to it.”
Following the second stop, Millard South’s offense took the lead for good, driving 95 yards in just five plays. Trae Taylor hit Marshall for 12 yards on a third down conversion and followed with a 25-yard completion down the sideline to Tay Ellis.
Marshall took the next play 55 yards down the far sideline for his second touchdown of the game and put the Patriots ahead 14-7 19 seconds into the second quarter.
“I had really been working hard this week, even just at practice,” Marshall said. “For the practice just to translate on the field really means a lot, especially when we needed to answer early on.”
Marshall had three carries of at least 40 yards in the first half, with his third setting up a field goal to end the second quarter.
The Patriot defense forced a turnover, and Marshall had a 45-yard run to move Millard South into Titan territory. Taylor followed with a 27-yard completion to Xane Krause to get the Patriots down to the 6-yard line. After an incomplete pass, Braiden McClanathan drilled a 23-yard field goal to send the Patriots into halftime with a 24-7 lead.
“He’s explosive, Mendenhall said of Marshall. “A couple of those holding calls, he would have had 200 yards rushing in the first half if those wouldn’t happen, so he did a great job.”
Taylor, who had an eight-yard touchdown pass to Jesse Johnson in the second quarter, added a pair of scoring passes in the third quarter.
Following a blocked punt, Taylor rolled out to his right and hit Landon Schneider for an 18-yard touchdown in the corner of the end zone to push the Patriot lead to 31-7.
On the next Patriot drive, Taylor used a pair of long completions, 16 yards to Carter Margheim and 23 yards to Ellis to move Millard South inside the Titan 15-yard line. Two plays later, he connected with Ellis for a 12-yard score on a bubble screen to lead 38-7 midway through the third quarter.
Marshall ran for 172 yards and two scores on just eight carries, and Taylor completed 14 passes for 220 yards and three scores. He also ran for 44 yards.
Ellis led the Patriot receiving corps with five catches for 81 yards and a touchdown. Krause added three catches for 66 yards.
The Patriot defense sacked Titan quarterback Colin Raybourn six times, including three by Hanover.
“I’m just getting off the edge with my speed,” Hanover said. “The D-line also helped me with the stunts. It’s a team game.”
Jagger Cox ran for 101 yards for the Titans (7-4). Pierson Ivener had five receptions for 43 yards and a touchdown.
