LAKE STEVENS — It may not have been a championship game, but it was a matchup of championship programs.
This year, the 2023 Class 3A-champion Bellevue High School Football team traveled to Lake Stevens and handed the two-time defending-champion Vikings a 31-21 non-league defeat on Friday night in front of a packed stadium.
Lake Stevens, which entered the game ranked third in Class 4A despite a season-opening loss at No. 2 Sumner a week earlier, fell to 0-2. Bellevue, the top-ranked Class 3A team, improved to 2-0.
“At times we played well, and at times, we made a lot of silly mistakes,” said Lake Stevens coach Tom Tri, whose teams beat Bellevue the past two seasons. “We just missed so many tackles. I loved our effort — it wasn’t our effort. But our execution is not where it needs to be.”
“If we execute, we’ve got a shot. We just didn’t make plays when we needed to tonight, and that’s what’s the most frustrating part.”
Many of those missed tackles were forced by Bellevue junior running back Max Jones, who bullied his way to 30 carries for 231 and three touchdowns. The highlight run came late in the fourth quarter when he raced to a 78-yard TD run to essentially put the game away.
Jones, who had suffered from cramps earlier in the game, began cramping up midway through the dagger run but had enough left to get the end zone.
“That last run with the cramping was tough, but I was pushing through it,” Jones said. “Gotta get the job done.”
The Vikings outgained Bellevue 384 yards to 366, but were plagued by three second-half turnovers and several dropped passes. Versatile senior running back Jayshon Limar led the Vikings with 17 carries for 86 yards and seven receptions for 106 yards.
Lake Stevens quarterback Kolton Matson completed 22 of 47 passes for 284 yards and three touchdowns.
Though the Vikings’ young defenders hung in there against Bellevue’s running game, the Wolverines bled the clock in the second half.
Leading 21-14 after thwarting a promising Lake Stevens drive, the Wolverines used 6 minutes, 36 seconds during a drive that ended with a Nick Matty field goal and a 24-14 edge with 7:28 to play in the game.
Jones did most of the dirty work with runs up the middle. Ryken Moon — son of NFL Hall of Famer and former Washington Husky quarterback Warren Moon — contributed seven carries for 70 yards.
The Wolverines, who won two of the last three Class 3A state titles while rarely throwing the ball in their Wing T offense, finished 0-for-3 on passing attempts.
Tri, who’s had to replace 10 of 11 starters on defense this year, was not interested in moral victories despite the two big-time games the Vikings scheduled to start this year ahead of the conference schedule that begins at home against Cascade on Sept. 20.
“A loss is a loss — it sucks,” said Tri, whose team led 14-13 at halftime. “I hated it last week, and I hated it this week. We’ve got to go back to work on Monday.”
“… I feel like we made as many mistakes this week as we made last week — if not more. So I feel like we went backwards, not forward.”
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