Last summer, Waterville-Elysian-Morristown head coach Jon Bakken sent his football team to a camp to learn the 3-5 defense. The players returned a bit disheartened.

“They told me we can’t run this defense,” Bakken said. “We’ll get killed if we try to run it.”

On Friday, about four months later, the Buccaneers played the 3-5 to perfection, shutting down a potent Triton attack in a 27-0 victory at the WEM field. The win gave the Bucs the Section 2A championship and puts them in a first-round state tournament game Friday in Rochester.

Triton went into the contest averaging nearly 35 points per game, but Waterville-Elysian-Morristown’s first-string defense allowed just four first downs the entire way and never let the Cobras cross the midfield stripe the first two quarters.

‘I think they’ve come around on the 3-5,” Bakken said with a smile afterward. “Now they love it. They see how effective it can be.”

Triton’s defense proved just as stubborn in the first quarter, denying WEM on three scoring opportunities inside the 30-yard line. The Bucs finally broke through with 6:28 left in the half. After quarterback Conrad Masberg’s 27-yard pass to Jordan Gregor set up a first-and-goal from the 3, Masberg scored on a keeper and the PAT kick made it 7-0.

WEM scored again just before the half. On a third-and-10 from the Triton 7 with 24 seconds left, Masberg rolled right and threw a strike to Cody Williams in the right corner of the end zone. Tyler Ranslow’s kick made it 14-0 at the break.

“We were confident we could control the line of scrimmage,” senior defensive tackle Chris Kuball said. “We just said let’s go in and stop them. We tried to close all the gaps.”

Teammate Grant Pope, one of the team’s five starting linebackers, picked off two passes to set up two WEM touchdowns.

“We knew they had a potent option game and we just tried to take that away from them,” Pope said. “We went out and played hard and played as a team. I’d say that one of our best defensive games of the season.”

The Bucs made it a 20-0 game with 3:57 left in the third quarter when fullback Zach Geyer was barely touched as he ran up the middle for a 10-yard score. WEM closed out the scoring with 11:53 to play. Masberg jumped over a pile at the 1/2-yard line and Ranslow’s kick made it 27-0.

Triton’s top three ball carriers managed a combined 56 yards rushing and quarterback Logan Spitzack completed just 4 of 15 passes for 33 yards.

Masberg finished 12 of 23 for 121 yards and a touchdown and ran in two others. Gregor was WEM’s top receiver with five catches for 73 yards. Reid Roemhildt led the ground game with 15 carries for 93 yards.

WEM (10-1) meets Caledonia in the first round of the Class A tournament at 7 p.m. Friday at Rochester Community and Technical College.