Millard South’s football team quickly put to rest Friday any concerns about whether they would suffer a letdown after having their 20-game winning streak snapped.
The Class A No. 2 seed Patriots scored on each of their first eight possessions and put up 542 yards of offense in their 56-7 win over No. 15 seed Lincoln Standing Bear in a playoff first round game at Buell Stadium.
Millard South (9-1) will host Papillion-La Vista South in the quarterfinals.
“It’s one day at a time,” Millard South coach Taylor Mendenhall said. “They earned the right to play another week of football, and we don’t take that for granted.”
Trae Taylor completed 16 passes for 353 yards and four touchdowns. The Nebraska commit also added 70 rushing yards and a touchdown.
Millard South had eight players score its eight touchdowns, and six of the touchdown drives needed four plays or fewer.
“We challenge them every time we have the ball to execute and finish in the end zone,” Mendenhall said.
Millard South scored just two touchdowns in last week’s 41-17 loss to Omaha Westside.
“Last week we didn’t execute the way we wanted to,” Patriot tight end Carter Margheim said. “Just to be able to come out and put points on the board just felt good.”
The Patriots took the lead for good on their opening possession. Taylor hit Margheim in stride on a slant and Margheim raced through the secondary for a 58-yard score.
“Trae ended up audibling the play, and it got me open on the slant route and I saw nothing but green grass and took it for a touchdown,” Margheim said.
Following a Lincoln Standing Bear punt, the Patriots needed just three plays to double their lead to 14-0. Taylor had his second touchdown pass in as many drives, this time finding Landon Schneider on a play action fake for a 49-yard score.
Taylor added a 63-yard touchdown to Tay Ellis on the first play of the second quarter to push the Patriot lead to 28-0. Ellis ran past his defender and was wide open and Taylor hit him in stride for the score.
The Patriot offense ran a 3-minute drive to finish off the first half. Combining runs and passes, Millard South drove 80 yards in 11 plays to score with 4 seconds left in the half. Taylor completed a 13-yard pass to Jesse Johnson to get the Patriots down the Grizzly 7-yard line.
He then scrambled seven yards for a rushing score on the next play. Taylor started scrambling to his right, nearly fell down but maintained his balance and rolled back to his right and beat the LSB defense to the goal line to give Millard South a 49-7 lead at the break.
Taylor started the third quarter with a touchdown. On the first snap of the quarter, he tossed a 75-yard score to Xane Krause. The route went for eight yards, with Krause outracing the secondary the rest of the way.
Aidan Marshall, Grant Scribner and Sir’Chris Swillie each had rushing touchdowns for the Patriots. Ellis had six catches for 98 yards, and Krause caught three passes for 98 yards.
Millard South limited the Grizzlies (5-5) to 47 yards of offense, including -15 rushing yards.
Chase Loecker had a 32-yard touchdown pass Caden Ahlers for Lincoln Standing Bear.
