LAKEWOOD--At Harry E. Lang Stadium in the 3A state championship game, Kennedy met its match -- and it was a familiar 'fire' called the Camas Papermakers who burned up the Lancers for four goals in 80 minutes. Camas showed superior talent on the field against Kennedy in a 4-0 win over the Burien private Catholic school Saturday, May 24.

"Camas is the team to beat," said head coach Brian Mullen, knowing full well how Camas was before Camas even beat Interlake in their semifinal opposite the one the Lancers played against Mercer Island.

"They're good," said Mullen.

Good as gold refined in a fire. There was one platinum too - the top player in the state of Washington and aptly named the Gatorade State Player of the Year -- Brent Richards.

He fired away in this one, littering the goal with shots and passes. Richards had no scores and no assists in this title game. But it didn't matter. Whenever he had the ball, Kennedy tried to apply more pressure via double teams, etc. and that just meant Richards could find someone open to pass to and they could assist or score.

The game was over as Camas struck for its first goal in this "best of the best" match of 3A high school competitors only three minutes, 30 seconds in, on a quick dribbling penetration from Nick Palodichuk and feed inside the six-yard penalty box to Quinton Beasley. It was1-0 Papermakers.

For the next 10 minutes, things stayed cool with even play, 17 minutes actually of basically back-and-forth ball possession, that is, in addition to Camas taking five shots to Kennedy's one. Kennedy's "one" was a 40 yard boot that had zero chance of making it past the Camas keeper. But Camas' five shots? Heck, Lancers keeper Sean Miller made two, three, four, maybe even five saves. One was spectacular by one Camas player, a cross from UW recruit Brent Richards and a header shot from Beasley. Get used to those two names. Both were simply playmakers with a maturity that had D-1 soccer recruits all over their bodies.

So that was exciting in the 10 minutes following Camas' first score, and so was the Kennedy girls fastpitch team coming from the parking lot to the Kennedy side grandstand to cheers from the fans in force..

Kennedy's fastpitch team came in to support their boys team and were carrying their big state championship trophy for winning fastpitch, beating Timberline, 5-1.

Hey, we got to talk about something here don't we that was good?

At the 20th minute, it was Camas getting it's second goal off a fast pitched pass from Richards after he dribbled laterally at the 30 yard crosswise. The ball sailed in, over the Kennedy defense to super sub Coner Valenter, who touched it to Beasley inside the six-yard box running onto the ball. Bam, goal!. It was 2-0 Camas.

This game was well on its way to being another Camas win. The Vancouver, Wash. area team beat the Lancers, 4-3, two years ago in the state semifinals. It just did not have the same look of the game before this Camas one, a semifinal against Mercer Island in which the Lancers fell behind 2-0 before coming back to win in a shootout, 3-2 (the Lancers won the shootout, 4-1, with Miller in goal).

But getting to this game is what it is all about and this Kennedy team that lost during the season to Highline, and lost during the season to Mount Rainier, was the team in the game that mattered most. No one else was but Camas in the state title and there are something like 90 3A schools.

Kennedy ended the half on a nice note, a shot from senior captain Tony Armitage on goal. But, again, it was from about 40 yards out as the Camas defense was just as staunch as its offense.

In the second half, Kennedy held off the fierce heat of Camas for 14 minutes before a shot from Beasley, a certain D-1 player, found the net close-in to make it 3-0.