For 69 minutes, the Bellevue boys soccer team controlled Wednesday night’s KingCo 3A tournament championship game. They controlled the play, they controlled the flow, they controlled the score.

It took eleven minutes for the Totems to break Bellevue’s heart.

Leland Matthaeus scored off a header in the 79th minute to complete the Totems rally and eliminate Bellevue from state berth contention with a 5-4 comeback victory.

Bellevue led the entire game until the 69th minute, when Sammamish’s Matt Lider tied the game. The Wolverines were even more stunned after Taylor Berg scored eight minutes later to give the Totems a 4-3 lead.

“Bellevue won the first 70 minutes,” said Sammamish coach Darryl Gonyea. “We won the final 10.”

The worst was yet to come. Race Sciabica scored a mere minute later in the 78th minute to tie the game for Bellevue and send the crowd into a frenzy. Less than a minute later, Matthaeus’ goal silenced the crowd and the Wolverines players were left in disbelief.

“I just knew it was going in when I got a piece of it,” Matthaeus said.

With the win, Sammamish plays today against the No. 4 team from the Metro League in a winner-to-state game. It was the third time the Totems had beaten Bellevue this season and the second time they had come from behind. All three games were decided by one goal.

It looked to be all Bellevue in the opening half, as the Wolverines peppered the Sammamish net with shots. Sophomore goalkeeper Stuart Ellsworth made huge saves early for Sammamish including a breakaway chance by Bellevue’s Brad Jackson less than five minutes in.

“Stu singlehandedly kept us in the game in that first half,” Gonyea said. “He just kept making save after save for us.”

Bellevue finally broke through in the 21st and 27th minutes, getting goals by Liam Kelly and Mike Kunz. After Berg netted his first goal of the game in the 36th minute, Kelly struck again to give the Wolverines a 3-1 lead at the beginning of the second half.

“I just kept telling the boys that our luck was going to change,” Gonyea said.

Mitchell Rock scored in the 61st minute to breathe life into the Totems before Matt Lider’s goal seven minutes later started the 11-minute scoring flurry that gave the Totems the improbable win.

“This is just the cherry on top of a season,” Matthaeus said. “We knew we had a good chance of doing this.”