Will you chip in to support our nonprofit newsroom with a donation today?
Yes, I want to support My MLTnews!
They call it a Kansas City Tiebreaker, but for a pair of Edmonds School District football teams it would better be described as an emotional roller coaster, with steep ups and downs and final destinations miles apart for each other.
The Meadowdale Mavericks and Edmonds-Woodway Warriors, along with the Shorewood Stormrays, locked up in a three-way tussle at Shoreline Stadium on Tuesday to determine the final standings of the 2025 3A Wesco League football South Conference. After a pair of tiebreaker contests, it was the Stormrays that came out on top, with E-W and Meadowdale both suffering losses during the evening.
As a result, Shorewood will be the second-place team in the final Wesco South standings (behind conference champion Mountlake Terrace). Meadowdale will be awarded third place in the conference due to their 34-31 win over the Warriors on Sept. 26. E-W has to settle for fourth place in the final conference standings.
All three teams finished the 2025 regular season with a 4-2-0 conference record, necessitating the tiebreaker on Tuesday. In the first round of the tiebreakers — where two teams clash on the field, each getting a turn with an offensive possession starting at the opposition’s 25-yard line — E-W defeated Meadowdale 8-7. In the second tiebreaker, the Warriors succumbed to the Stormrays 7-6.
The tiebreaker finish was especially hard on the Warriors as the team defeated the Mavs in the first tiebreaker round but ended up behind their rivals in the league’s final South Conference standings.
“It’s a weird format anyway,” said E-W Coach Joe Roth. “We lost the second round but we revert back to the fourth (place). That’s dumb to me but that’s what it is. The first loser should be fourth.”
The Mavericks’ last-second victory over Edmonds-Woodway in their head-to-head matchup earlier this season ended up being the determining factor for final conference placings, not the 8-7 defeat the team suffered against E-W in the first tiebreaker round on Tuesday. That one-point loss came after the Warriors’ Carmelo LaRocca scored on a 1-yard TD run, then ran in the 3-yard, 2-point conversion for the win.
Meadowdale had scored on their only offensive possession of the night on a 24-yard TD run by Cayden Rivera followed by a PAT kick by Holden Johnson. But due to their first-round tiebreaker loss to E-W, the Mavericks had to sit out the second-round tiebreaker and watch the Warriors duke it out with Shorewood.
In that second round, Edmonds-Woodway scored with their offensive possession on a 23-yard TD pass from Andrew Bar to Gaige Lynch. But Tyler Yates’ point-after-touchdown attempt sailed wide, leaving the door open for the Stormrays to clinch the second-round victory with a touchdown and a successful PAT.
Kyson Vanee connected with Jack Gallagher on a third down 12-yard TD screen pass for Shorewood, then Stormray Kaare Nye kicked the extra point, giving Shorewood the victory.
“We had them,” Roth said after Shorewood’s second-round win. “We had them pinned, then they got the screen on the short side of the field.”
With the loss to the Stormrays and their fourth-place finish in the Wesco League South Conference, E-W will now have to travel nearly 90 miles to face the league’s North Conference fourth place team, the Ferndale Golden Eagles, on Saturday, Nov. 1. Kickoff is slated for 3 p.m. The winner of Saturday’s contest will earn a spot in the WIAA 3A State Football Playoffs that begin on Nov. 7.
Despite the results of Tuesday’s Kansas City Tiebreaker, Roth is confident that his team will bounce back and be ready for Saturday’s clash against Ferndale.
“We saw some disappointment (tonight) but what we really saw is a team that wants to keep battling,” Roth said after the tiebreaker rounds were finished on Tuesday. “We want to keep going … There’s no quit in the team. And that’s what we’re going to hang our hats on.”
With their third-place Wesco League South Conference finish, Meadowdale gets to stay close to home for their next game. The Mavericks will host the north conference’s fifth- place finisher, the Snohomish Panthers, on Friday, Oct. 31, at Edmonds Stadium, with kickoff at 8 p.m. The winner of the game will punch their ticket to the state playoffs’ round-of-32 weekend.
Shorewood successfully kicks for the PAT as E-W desperately tries to block it
Meadowdale Coach Antwoine Gamble is pleased that his Mavericks get to play in a state playoff play-in game for the second season in a row.
“It’s important for what we’re trying to write in our story and in our chapter,” Gamble said. “We’ve got to be able to go as hard as we can to make sure that our whole program gets an opportunity to do what’s right, to get back to where we belong, back to the storied history that Meadowdale has.”
“Right now we’re having some success but it’s easy to live in the past,” he continued. “We’re trying to live in the present and keep going, keep writing our story.”
Prep Football: 3A Wesco League South Conference tiebreaker (to determine 2nd, 3rd and 4th place conference placements), Oct. 28
Tiebreaker #1
– Edmonds-Woodway 8 – Meadowdale 7
Scoring:
– Cayden Rivera (Meadowdale), 24-yard TD run; Holden Johnson PAT kick good
– Carmelo LaRocca (Edmonds-Woodway), 1-yard TD run; Carmelo LaRocca 3-yard run to convert 2-point conversion
Tiebreaker #2
– Shorewood 7 – Edmonds-Woodway 6
Scoring
– Andrew Bau (Edmonds-Woodway) 23-yard TD pass to Gaige Lynch; Tyler Yates PAT kick no good
– Kyson Vanee (Shorewood) 14-yard TD pass to Jack Gallagher; Kaare Nye PAT kick good
Overall Records: Meadowdale 4-2-0 in 3A Wesco League South Conference (3rd in conference), 6-2-0 overall; Edmonds-Woodway 4-2-0 in 3A Wesco League South Conference (4th in conference), 5-3-0 overall; Shorewood 4-2-0 in 3A Wesco League South Conference (2nd in conference); 6-2-0 overall
Next Meadowdale game: versus Snohomish; Friday, Oct. 31; 8 p.m. at Edmonds Stadium (winner to WIAA 3A State Football Playoffs round-of-32 game, Nov. 7 or 8)
Next Edmonds-Woodway game: versus Ferndale; Saturday, Nov. 1; 3 p.m.; at Ferndale High School (winner to WIAA 3A State Football Playoffs round-of-32 game, Nov. 7 or 8)
Next Shorewood game: versus Mount Vernon; Friday, Oct. 31 or Saturday, Nov. 1; time to be announced; at Mount Vernon High School (both teams qualified for WIAA 3A State Football Playoffs round-of-32 game, Nov. 7 or 8)
Real first and last names — as well as city of residence — are required for all commenters.
This is so we can verify your identity before approving your comment.
By commenting here you agree to abide by our Code of Conduct. Please read our code at the bottom of this page before commenting.