TACOMA — Eastside Catholic won the state 3A football championship Friday, but the more surprising news may be who lost.
The Crusaders’ 35-13 victory in the Tacoma Dome came over Bellevue, and it stopped the Wolverines’ national-high run of 67 consecutive wins and six consecutive state championship – the last two coming over Eastside Catholic.
“It was a belief that they can be beaten, because everyone can be beaten,” said junior Brandon Wellington, who led the Crusaders with 110 rushing yards and three touchdowns. “Through the power of God that he gave us, we came out on top.”
Bellevue started with business as usual, taking a 7-0 lead on its first possession, and answering immediately when Eastside pulled even.
But the final 28 points were scored by the Crusaders.
The avalanche was reflected across the stats sheet. Eastside had 24 first downs to Bellevue’s four. They outrushed them 226-158 and outpassed them 188 yards to zero, as the Wolverines were 0-for-3 through the air.
The Crusaders piled up 414 total yards against a team that had been allowing just 177 yards per game.
“It was an incredible effort,” Eastside coach Jeremy Thielbahr said. “That’s just such a good ball club: Bellevue. My hat’s off to them. What we asked of our kids is compete every down as hard as you possibly can, because that’s what Bellevue does, and we’ve got to match that. And you know what? We did.”
The Crusaders’ path to the championship took them past Meadowdale (42-14), Lincoln (28-21) and Mount Spokane (42-24) before they got their third straight shot at stopping the Bellevue dynasty.
“The best team won,” Bellevue coach Butch Goncharoff said. “They beat us in every phase of the game. They controlled the ball, which hasn’t happened to us all year.”
It was Bellevue’s first loss in a championship game after 11 victories, and it was their first loss of any kind since September 2010.
“It’s been a while, yeah,” Goncharoff said. “But you know it’s going to happen at some point. It’s going to happen to everybody. This game will humble you at some point. It humbled us tonight.”
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