EUREKA — Senior lineman Owen Davis, his curly, Sideshow Bob haircut bobbing violently above his huddled teammates, roared at the top of his lungs. As he belted out his victory speech, four words ripped through the noise cleanly.

“We made a statement,” he said.

What a statement it was.

Running behind Davis, Joe Fehr and a bruising offensive line, the Eureka Lions won the District 7B championship for the first time since 2009, defeating five-time champion Bigfork with an emphatic 25-6 win on Friday night.

“It’s honestly a program changer,” Eureka coach Trevor Utter said of the win. “Winning is a mentality and Bigfork has kind of always had that mentality of winning. For us to get over this hump and actually beat Bigfork, the giant of our conference, it helps your program.”

“It’s freaking awesome, dude,” Lions running back Cannan Smith said.

“It’s just a dream come true. It’s great to see that these guys will really break their necks and backs fighting for me and the rest of us, and I’ll do the same for them.”

Smith scored the go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter and ran for 69 yards on 19 carries. The senior and classmate Matthew Anderson combined to run for 125 yards behind Davis and his linemates, who slowly took control of the game in the second half.

“Our line is incredible,” Smith said. “I love it. I love running behind them. I know I can count on them every down to block for me and do it with authority and move those guys.”

“That’s our strength,” Utter said of his linemen.

“We have four seniors and one junior and we build them up as the guys. We will win and lose on those guys’ backs. This win goes to them. At the end of the game, we were able to deflate the ball and just go. That was all offensive line push.

“It helps to have a couple pretty good backs, too.”

The game could have been more one-sided were it not for a pair of Eureka turnovers deep in Bigfork territory in the first half, both on mishandled snaps.

The Vikings took the lead midway through the second quarter when Augie Emslie threw a 28-yard touchdown pass to Anders Epperly, but Eureka answered just 90 seconds later when Garrett Graves found Jacob Nowakowski behind the defense for a 67-yard scoring strike. The game was tied at six at halftime.

“The thing is, they had confidence even when the chips were down,” Utter said.

“We played some big mistake football (in the first half) and it’s still 6-6. We should be winning but we’re not, now we have to go out and do what we do in the second half.

“The kids honestly believed they could get this win.”

Smith scored the winning touchdown on Eureka’s second possession of the second half, bounding in from seven yards out, and Anderson plowed his way into the end zone twice after that to round out the scoring.

The Vikings played shorthanded because Emslie was injured trying to tackle Austyn Sherwood after he intercepted the Bigfork quarterback late in the first half. Emslie did not play in the second half, and the only pass his replacement, Epperly, threw in the second half was picked off.

Eureka outgained Bigfork 319-127, including a 134-53 edge on the ground.

Both teams will advance to the Class B state playoffs after a week off. The Lions will be at home on Oct. 28 in the playoffs’ opening round, while Bigfork will have to travel.

Final playoff seedings and matchups will be revealed after next week’s games.

Bigfork 0 6 0 0 — 6

Eureka 0 6 12 7 — 25

Second quarter

BIG - Anders Epperly 28 pass from Augie Emslie (kick failed), 5:35

EUR - Jacob Nowakowski 67 pass from Garrett Graves (kick failed), 4:03

Third quarter

EUR - Cannan Smith 7 run (conversion failed), 6:25

EUR - Matthew Anderson 8 run (kick failed), 1:00

Fourth quarter

EUR - Anderson 4 run (Nowakowski kick), 6:59

Individual Statistics

Rushing — Bigfork: Matt Farrier 21-26, Anders Epperly 5-16, Randy Stultz 9-11. Eureka: Cannan Smith 19-69, Matt Anderson 10-56, Garrett Graves 12-10, Connor Harmon 1-minus 1.

Passing — Bigfork: Augie Emslie 7-12-2-74, Randy Stultz 0-1-0-0. Eureka: Garrett Graves 6-8-0-185.

Receiving — Bigfork: Anders Epperly 4-47, Randy Stultz 2-17, Matt Farrier 1-10. Eureka: Jacob Nowakowski 1-67, James Dunn 2-66, Cannan Smith 1-27, Austyn Sherwood 2-25.