Bellevue hosts Mercer Island Saturday for KingCo title

Bellevue High plays host to Mercer Island at 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31, with the 3A KingCo Crest division championship on the line.

Both teams enter at 7-1. The Wolverines sit at No. 2 in the state and are unbeaten in district play at 5-0, according to MaxPreps. Mercer Island arrives fresh off a dramatic overtime win in a three-team Kansas tiebreaker that punched the Islanders' ticket to the title game.

How Mercer Island got here

Mercer Island, Liberty and Inglemoor finished KingCo play tied at 5-1, forcing an Oct. 27 Kansas tiebreaker at Issaquah High School, the Mercer Island Reporter reported. The format: two 12-minute quarters per game, with the loser dropping to face the next opponent after a 20-minute break.

Liberty jumped ahead 7-0 on a Tristan Klein touchdown. The Islander defense locked down from there. Junior running back Kainoa Brown scored after a Liberty fumble to tie it at 7-7.

Neither team scored again in regulation. In overtime, two-time state champion soccer player Adam Kiviat drilled a 25-yard field goal to give Mercer Island the 10-7 win.

A first-year coach's turnaround

The Islanders went 3-6 last season. First-year head coach Mason Azose has flipped the program.

"Every single time, it's building habits and doing things that are difficult," Azose said following a recent practice, according to the Mercer Island Reporter.

Azose said the turnaround started in the weight room, where senior leaders welcomed younger players. He said he knew something had changed when he saw seniors helping freshmen rack weights and giving them high fives. "I went, 'Oh, there is something here,'" he said.

Islanders loaded with playmakers

Ten different Mercer Island players had scored touchdowns this season before the Liberty tiebreaker. Brown led the team with nine touchdowns and close to 900 rushing yards at that point. Sophomore quarterback Luke Christofferson had thrown for 925 yards and 12 touchdowns at an over-60% completion rate before the tiebreaker.

On defense, sophomore end Axel Avenstam had nine sacks, 67 tackles, 18 tackles for loss and an interception. Senior defensive back Chase Kelly had four of the secondary's eight combined interceptions, and opposing quarterbacks completed fewer than half their passes against the Islander defense.

What Bellevue brings

Bellevue's lone loss came early in the season at Puyallup, according to VarsityWA. The Wolverines run a Wing-T offense and have dominated KingCo opponents since that defeat. Head coach Michael Kneip leads a Bellevue squad that MaxPreps lists first in the district.

Mercer Island routed two Bellevue School District opponents in recent weeks: 45-7 over Interlake on Oct. 16 and 41-0 over Newport on Oct. 23, according to MaxPreps.