Lind-Ritzville-Sprague football 2B state champion

TACOMA - Lind-Ritville-Sprague (LRS) capped of an undefeated season with a thrilling come from behind 21-19 win in the waning minutes of the 2B state championship game against Morton-White Pass Friday at the Tacoma Dome.

The victory over the Timberwolves was the first time in the last eight years the Broncos have been crowned state champion, and the initial win for Greg Whitmore as head coach of the team.

"It was a typical gritty Bronco effort. We we're outmanned a bit physically, but I told the kids to hang tough, work their tails off and something good will happen," Whitmore said "It's been a surreal experience ... This is the first time we've won it all since 2004 ... but my first time as head coach ... so it's pretty special."

LRS fell behind 6-0 early on a 12-yard Rylon Kolb run (kick failed), but fought back to take their only lead of the first half on a 2-yard TD pass from Dylan Hartz to Cort Ruzicka (Matt Leffel kick) to go up 7-6 with three minutes left in the first quarter of play.

Morton-White Pass regained the lead 12-7 when Brian Reynolds hit pay dirt from 12-yards out (run failed) eight seconds into the second quarter. The score held up through intermission.

"We gave them any early lead ... the kids had some jitters and made a couple mental mistakes so it could've been bigger at the half but we forced some turnovers and got a couple stops," Whitmore said. "And even though we never trailed at the half all year, I really didn't have to say much to keep the guys focused as this team never gives up. What I did say was I had been in the championship game three times before and we had the lead twice at halftime and lost. The other time we trailed and won so if we take the second half kick and go down and score, we'll be right back in the game."

And that's exactly how it played out as LRS received the kick and marched down field on a four minute drive on that was capped off by a 3-yard Ruzuicka run (Ruzicka from Hartz) to go back on top 15-13.

The lead didn't hold up long, however, as the Timberwolves Kolb connected up with Gianni Bertucci for a 33-yard score (Reynolds kick) to make it 19-15 with three and a half minutes to go in the third quarter.

Tough defense by both teams kept LRS and Morton-White Pass off the board for the next 15 minutes of action.

Down by six points with seven minutes left in the game and pinned deep in their own territory, the Broncos converted a key fourth-and-19 when Hartz connected up with O'Neill for 23 yards to keep their winning drive alive.

A few plays later O'Neill found the end zone (kick blocked) for the final score of the contest.

"We actually converted four fourth down situations in the game, and had they stopped us on anyone of those, we could be talking about a loss instead of a win," Whitmore said. "We scored to go ahead with two minutes left in the game and they still had time to come back, but Dylan (Hartz) made a diving one-handed interception to kill a scoring drive."

Morton-White Pass out gained LRS 285 to 182 yards on the game.

O'Neill led the ground attack for the Broncos rushing for 52 yards on 14 carries. He also led all LRS receivers with five receptions for 43 yards. Ryan Whitmore caught two passes for 26 yards, and Ruzicka had three catches for 23 yards. Hartz completed 10 of 18 passes for 98 yards.