Ryan Lewis's 198 yards and two touchdowns, combined with a total team effort on defense, propelled the top ranked Wolves (8-0, 4-0 KingCo Crest) to a 28-21 win over third-ranked (5-3, 3-1 KingCo Crest) Friday night in a thriller that included a power outage late in the fourth quarter.
"For our kids this has been a long time coming," Eastlake head coach Gene Dales said. "You've always been the stepchild, and now you get to be on top of the throne for a week."
The win was the first in this backyard rivalry for Eastlake in school history against Skyline.
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The Spartans opened the scoring with a Max Browne screen pass to Damian Greene down the left hand sideline from 8 yards out with 3:39 left in the first quarter to give them a 7-0 lead.
Then, the Wolves propensity for huge plays on special teams struck again as Colton Teglovic ran back the ensuing kickoff 72 yards, giving the Eastlake a short field and then two plays later Keegan Kemp tied things up scoring on a quarterback keeper with 2:45 left in the first to make it 7-7.
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After another strong defensive stand by the Wolves, Lewis broke off a 68 yard touchdown run on the last play in the first quarter to push Eastlake out to a 14-7 lead.
The Wolves would add two more touchdowns, including a heads up fumble return by Lewis who had the presecence of mind to pickup the fumble by Kemp and scamper into the end zone to put Eastlake ahead 28-7 with seven minutes left in the third quarter.
However, Skyline would not back down and came back hard at the Wolves. Browne, who was 29 of 48 for 305 yards with one touchdown and one interception, hit Mason Gregory in the right corner of the end zone to cut the lead to 28-14 with 1:55 left to play in the third quarter.
The Spartan defense made some key adjustments to get back in the game, said coach Dales.
"They gave us some different looks," Dales said. "We had some play action passes open that complete would have helped us."
After a one yard touchdown run by Damian Green to cut it to a one score game the Wolves defense stepped up and made huge plays, capped off by linebacker Sean Macdonald scooping up a fumble after a big hit by Bryan Quick with 31.2 seconds left in the game. And then the lights suddenly went out in the stadium.
"Our energy killed it," Macdonald said in regard to the power outage.
On the defense's play MacDonald spread the credit around. "Our defensive line did a great job of getting pressure on them, and our db's did a great job in coverage."
Macdonald added, "We also did a great job in practice this week."
With the win Eastlake moves on to play Woodinville next Thursday night for the KingCo Championship. Lewis talked about the emotions of getting to play for a championship.
"It's a great feeling, we have never had the opportunity before," Lewis said.
Coach Dales also said that their tough legue schedule prepares his team for playoff football.
"We play teams every year just to get to the playoffs that no one else in the state wants to play come playoff time," Dales said. "Every year is tough."
Eastlake will play Woodinville next Thursday Oct. 27 at 7 p.m. at Pop Keeney Stadium in Bothell for the KingCo 4A Championship.