A three-game losing streak in early April for the Eastside Catholic Crusaders boys baseball team is a distant memory.

The Crusaders, who have won 11 consecutive games since April 11, earned the Class 3A Metro League Championship courtesy of a 8-2 win against Seattle Prep on May 12 at Steve Cox Memorial Field in Seattle. Eastside Catholic (19-4) clinched a berth at the Class 3A state tournament with the victory. The Crusaders will kick off the first round of the state tournament on May 20.

“I’m super proud of them. It is awesome. We went into the season and we had a bunch of new faces. We lost all those seniors from last year and no one really knew what to expect with this group. To see them come out and win that title was awesome. It was really good see all that hard work pay off for them,” Crusaders’ head coach Kyle Larsen said.

The Crusaders graduated 10 seniors off of a 2015 team that lost to Central Kitsap in the Class 3A quarterfinals.

“The first thing I said to our guys after tryouts was, ‘I know we don’t have a lot of experience but I don’t want to hear any of that because of what we are building. This team is talented and you guys can do it. If you guys put it together you can really achieve something special this year.’ There would no excuses for lack of experience.”

Larsen’s team’s mission has been accomplished.

“It has been really cool to see them buy into it and go on this run this year,” Larsen said.

Larsen said his team will have a chance to get healthy due to the eight-day gap between the Metro League title game and the opening round of the state tournament.

“We just got to keep doing what we’ve been doing. We had that week where we lost three games in a row (April 4 through April 8). Ever since then we have treated every game like a playoff game and we knew we had to win games to get that No. 1 seed in Metro,” Larsen said. “These guys are ready. They know what its like to have their backs up against the wall. I’m excited to see what they can do.”