Eastside Catholic wins 35-13 in Washington Class 3A state finals.
Brandon Wellington rushed 33 times for 110 yards helping Eastside Catholic to a win over Bellevue Friday night.
File photo by Vince Miller
There’s a new streak to watch in Washington.
Eastside Catholic (Sammamish, Wash.) dominated six-time defending champion
Bellevue 35-13 in the Washington Class 3A state championship
Friday night, ending
the nation’s longest winning streak at 67 games.
Harley Kirsch, Eastside Catholic
File photo by Vince Miller
Bellevue was 11-0 in state championship games dating back to
2002 and had won 27 state playoff games in a row. The loss is the most lopsided defeat in the career of Bellevue coach Butch Goncharoff.
Behind junior quarterback
Harley Kirsch, Eastside Catholic
won its first football state title and 13th game in a row since a season-opening
loss to Alemany. The Crusaders could be poised to build on that streak in 2015
with a young cast of stars.
The victory punctuates the KingCo school’s rapid rise to
prominence under head coach Jeremy Thielbahr. The Crusaders lost to Bellevue in
the 2012 and 2013 title games.
Bellevue's win streak was the longest active streak in the nation.
Edgewood Academy (Elmore, Ala.), which ended its season on Nov. 21, has the longest active win streak at 57 in a row. Bellevue had ended Eastside Catholic's season in the playoffs each of the past three seasons.
Bellevue held an early 13-7 lead after a 56-yard run by
Isaiah Gilchrist, according to
tweets by Seattle Times reporter Josh Liebeskind.
However, Eastside Catholic grabbed the 14-13 lead at halftime with a six-yard touchdown pass from
Harley Kirsch to
Hunter Bryant.
Devon Arbis-Jackson extended Eastside Catholic's lead with a 28-yard touchdown catch on fourth down in the third quarter.
Brandon Wellington gave Eastside Catholic a two-touchdown lead with a 1-yard run early in the fourth quarter. After Bellevue fumbled the ensuing kickoff, Wellington added another 1-yard touchdown run for a 35-13 lead.
Wellington finished with 110 yards on 33 carries while Kirsch added 94 yards on 20 carries. Kirsch also completed 20 of 22 passes for 188 yards. Eastside Catholic ran 83 plays for 414 yards of offense while Bellevue managed just 25 offensive plays, did not complete a pass in three attempts and gained just 158 yards.
