High school football roundup: Mount Tahoma beats Bellarmine, remains undefeated

Results, recaps and more from Week 6 high school football contests around the South Sound will be posted on this page on Thursday night. Looking for more scores? Find them on our statewide scoreboard here.

MOUNT TAHOMA 35, BELLARMINE PREP 13

It was close for a while, until it wasn’t. Bellarmine Prep wanted to play spoiler on Friday night on the road against Mount Tahoma, and for a while, it looked like the Lions might have an outside shot against the T-Birds, who are a top-five 3A team in the state this season.

But Mount Tahoma is fine with these grind-it-out, tight games.

“We’re very comfortable,” said Mount Tahoma two-way WR/DB star Elijah Durr, a UW commit.

The large senior class is close on the field and off. Even when things aren’t going perfectly, there’s a level of trust that exists between them.

“The biggest thing is owning our identity,” T-Birds’ coach Keith Terry said. “We want to run the ball. We’re gonna be explosive in the pass game but we’re OK grinding it out.”

Mount Tahoma led 14-10 at half, getting all it could handle from Bellarmine QB Birk Johnston and the Lions. The T-Birds led 21-13 at the end of the third quarter. Then Mount Tahoma quarterback Mikkah Cordero found Durr twice in the fourth quarter for touchdowns to make it a comfortable 35-13 win.

“Honestly, I just had to put the thought in his head that he’s that guy and he’s gonna make every single throw,” Durr said of his connection with Cordero.

Mount Tahoma struck first on a 67-yard touchdown run from running back Nezie White and added a 9-yard rush from Ke’Shawn Hines to make it 14-0 in the first half. But Bellarmine scored 10 points with less than three minutes to play in the first half to hang around: Johnston found Ben Heisel for a 9-yard touchdown before a field goal to cut the lead to four.

Cordero kept it on a read option for a 6-yard touchdown in the third quarter, before another Bellarmine field goal made things interesting. Then Mount Tahoma distanced itself from the visiting side.

Mount Tahoma running back Nezie White rushed 14 times for 170 yards and a touchdown in the win behind Mount Tahoma’s offensive line. Running back Ke’Shawn Hines had 111 rushing yards and a touchdown.

Mount Tahoma coach Keith Terry felt one reason the game was close until the fourth quarter was because the officiating was one-sided.

“Honestly, man, it’s tough playing against the refs, too,” he said. “No knock on Bellarmine by any stretch of the imagination. It’s tough when every call goes against you.”

Regardless, Mount Tahoma came away with another win to move to 6-0 on the season. The run game racked up yards all night and Durr was the clear two-way standout, coming away with an interception (nearly two, if not called off on a questionable penalty) and a pair of receiving touchdowns. The UW commit was thrilled to face a pass-happy Bellarmine team that was willing to test him.

“I was looking a lot forward to it, I ain’t gonna lie,” he said. “I don’t really get action like that. When I get the action like that, I’m gonna make a play.”

T-Birds’ coach Keith Terry saw a special performance.

“He’s just showing who he is,” Terry said. “It’s nice to see somebody that’s gonna throw against him a little bit. He doesn’t get a lot of balls throughout the season, so when the ball comes his way, he makes plays.

“He showed, again, why he’s one of the best in the state on both sides of the ball.”