Squaring off against its conference rival in a league-deciding regular season finale, the stakes were set as Mercer Island aimed to earn a share of the 3A KingCo crown Friday night at Bellevue High School.

But a quick start by the Wolverines ultimately proved too much for the Islanders to overcome.

Claiming a double-digit lead early in a game the Wolverines never trailed, Bellevue clinched sole possession of the 3A KingCo title, beating Mercer Island 59-45. The Wolverines earned the top seed in next week’s KingCo tournament, with the Islanders taking the second seed.

“[Bellevue] played really well tonight. They started out the game and they got 13 points in the first couple minutes,” Mercer Island coach Gavin Cree said. “It seemed like they made every shot, every guy hit a jump shot. That was tough. They were hot, they were feeling it and they were feeding off the crowd, give them credit for that.”

Bellevue (18-2, 12-0) was off to an early 8-0 advantage before Sam Nordale hit a 3-pointer to put Mercer Island (15-6, 10-2) on the board. The Wolverines responded, rattling off five quick points to extend their lead 13-3. Baskets from Ethan Chen and David Emanuels brought the Islanders within six, but the Wolverines answered with another 8-0 run, getting back-to-back 3-pointers from big man Mikey Henn and freshman Andrew Kenney, and finished the first quarter ahead 21-9.

Mercer Island managed to slow the Wolverines’ offense down a bit in the second quarter, but needed five unanswered points to close the half to cut a 20-point deficit to trail 31-16 at the break.

The Islanders fought back in the third, opening the half with a 10-0 run and getting its first five points of the quarter from Emanuels. Mercer Island drew within five off a basket from Nordale, cutting Bellevue’s lead to 31-26. Nordale had nine points in the third, as Mercer Island finished the quarter trailing 40-33.

But Bellevue had a few more runs left for the game’s final period. Kyle Foreman opened the fourth with a 3-pointer to extend the Wolverines’ lead to 10, and back-to-back 3-pointers from Henn and Zack Moore extended a nine-point Bellevue advantage to a 57-42 lead in the game’s final minutes, effectively putting the contest out of reach.

Nordale led the Islanders with 20 points. Henn led Bellevue with 19 points, and Foreman had 10.

Cree said afterward it would’ve been easy for his team to fold after Bellevue got off to its hot start, and he thought the Islanders played the Wolverines even after the first quarter. But they couldn’t erase the damage done.

“We’ve got to come out and be in them a little bit more so they don’t get hot,” Cree said. “They have a lot of shooters. We’ve got to just take that part of their game away from them at the beginning of the game.”

Mercer Island will open KingCo tournament competition against Lake Washington at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 10 at MIHS.