Generally, it’s not good to give out trophies before sporting events, especially with opponents watching who believe said trophy is rightfully their own.

As the Mercer Island volleyball team watched Bellevue receive the 2014 KingCo 3A regular season title before the two teams squared off for the league’s tournament championship, the Islander players looked around at each other with knowing glances and smiles. They knew what they were going to do. Four sets of volleyball later, they did just that.

Mercer Island beat Bellevue 3-1 to win the KingCo 3A tournament championship Saturday at Juanita High School, earning KingCo’s top seed going into the district tournament. After having to forfeit six early-season wins, and thus losing the regular season title to their rivals, the Islanders agreed seeing the Wolverines receive their trophy before the match only added more fuel to the fire.

“It was tough, but that made us want to win even more,” said outside hitter Jemma Yeadon. “I was just like, ‘show them who really is the champion.’ It’s really all my mindset was, because we couldn’t affect who won [KingCo’s regular season title], but we could affect who wins this game and prove that we are number one.”

Mercer Island roared out to a 2-0 lead, taking two competitive sets 25-19 and 25-23 before Bellevue came back to win the third game 25-21. But against an Islander squad the Wolverines were unable to beat all season, Bellevue fell into an early hole, trailing 10-1 in the deciding set, as Mercer Island dominated 25-13 to close out the match. Yeadon was devastating throughout, posting 18 kills, 17 digs, two blocks and an ace. Natalie Robinson had 10 aces to go along with 51 assists and eight digs, and Kelly Behrbaum had 13 kills in the winning effort.

McKay said afterward with the playoffs beginning, her team has focused on setting themselves up for the competition ahead and have been able to put the early-season forfeits behind them.

“I think we’ve kind of forgotten about it. We don’t talk about it,” McKay said. “There was a week-period where it was on people’s minds and, as Jemma called it, it was a grieving period.”

“I don’t think it affects us anymore,” Yeadon added. “We have goals beyond KingCo, and we’re going to prove that we can do greater things than KingCo.”

Mercer Island will begin district competition taking on the winner of the Bainbridge-Ballard first round match at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Juanita High School.