Skyline’s plan was simple — swarm early on defense, and strike quickly on offense.

“Anytime you’re playing a rival, or playing a great team, to score first is so important to put a little bit of doubt in the opponent,” Spartan head coach Mat Taylor said. “That’s what we did.”

Skyline executed its objective to perfection Friday on the Plateau, handily defeating KingCo Crest rival Issaquah 35-6.

After forcing the Eagles into a three-and-out punt situation on the game’s opening drive, the Spartans set the tone on offense with a methodical 12-play, 74-yard scoring drive.

Sophomore quarterback Max Browne capped the near 5-minute drive off with a 14-yard seem pass to Teran Togia, who tip-toed in the back of the end zone for the score. The senior had two catches for 37 yards on the series, and ended the game with six catches for 100 yards.

“We were able to do some crossing routes, confuse their backers a little bit and there was some holes in the middle, Browne said. “Terran Togia found the holes. He’s a great receiver, and he just made my life easy.”

Skyline’s defense took back over, forcing Issaquah into three-and-out punts on its next two possessions.

“We could just never really get (anything) going,” Eagles’ head coach Chris Bennett said. “Ethan (Kalin) never really got comfortable throwing the ball … we could just never sustain drives.”

Skyline bumped its lead up to two touchdowns at the 8:36 mark of the second quarter when Browne dove into the end zone on fourth and goal from the 1-yard line. The Spartans held onto their 14-0 lead held until halftime, limiting the Eagles to just 43 yards of total offense in the first half.

“That was huge,” Taylor said. “Our defense has been awesome.”

Things didn’t get any easier for Issaquah to start the second half. Kalin, the Eagles’ starting quarterback, was forced to sit the remainder of the game after it was ruled he suffered a concussion late in the first half.

An already struggling offense continued to have problems on the first drive of the second half when the ball was snapped over back-up quarterback Braden Bouwman’s head. Skyline recovered the ball at Issaquah’s 18 yard line, and two plays later Browne found tight end Connor Cree for a 17-yard TD pass and a 21-0 lead.

The Eagles worked their way onto the scoreboard on the ensuing drive when Bouwman found Nik Landdeck open in the end zone on a fourth-and-goal pass from the 2-yard line. A missed extra point left the score 21-6 with 3:28 to go in the third quarter.

Issaquah then recovered a Skyline fumble at midfield and drove all the way to the Spartan’s 21-yard line.

The drive, and any hope of a comeback quickly ended, however, when Bouwman was intercepted by Michael Ford at the 8-yard line.

“It’s a little hard when the second string guy doesn’t get a lot of reps during the week and he’s new, it makes it tough,” Bennett said.

Skyline marched down the field and punched in another score with 8:34 left in the game — this time on a 18-yard run from Damien Greene.

Browne (22-for-32, 262 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT) rushed in his second score of the game later in the fourth quarter.

The victory was the third straight for Skyline, which after losing its season opener at Liberty, beat Bellevue and Lake Oswego (Ore.).

“I think the Liberty game, it was tough, but we learned a lot,” Browne said. “The one we had to win was Issaquah and we did, and it’s huge for KingCo standings and KingCo championship possibilities … we’ve just go to keep rolling.”

Issaquah, which suffered its first loss of the season, dropped to 3-1 overall.

“We’ve just got to go back to the drawing board this week,” Bennett said.