Resilient, champions, historic.

Those three words perfectly describe the Jim Thorpe Olympians performance Friday night in the Eastern Conference Class 3A Championship against Salisbury.

Down 14-0 early in the contest, the Olympians showed resilience, battling back to score 21 unanswered points to lead by one at the half.

Thorpe then outscored the Falcons 20-6 in the second half en route to its first-ever postseason championship, making history with a 41-26 win.

“This was a special win tonight for our seniors, our whole team, and really for all of our former football players at Jim Thorpe to bring home a championship for them,” said Olympians head coach Mark Rosenberger.

“I’m just extremely proud of all our players and coaches for putting in the time this season. And tonight, this was a total team effort. Our coaches made some key adjustments, and our players executed for a very special win.”

Thorpe (8-3) certainly needed to make some adjustments after the Falcons (6-5) jumped out to a quick 14-0 lead in the first quarter.

A nine-play opening drive that ended in a Tim Buda 9-yard run, and a 69-yard punt return for a touchdown by Chad Parton on Salisbury’s ensuing possession gave the Falcons a two-score lead midway through the frame.

But the Olympians’ resiliency reared its head as they quickly got back into the ball game doing what they do best — running the football.

On Thorpe’s possession after the Falcons’ punt return score, two big runs by CJ Selby (20 yards) and Dom Madera (23 yards) set up a 10-yard Madera score. Then, after forcing Salisbury to punt and starting at their own 43, the Olympians went back to the ground game, running the ball five straight times — all by Selby. The senior capped off the drive with a 26-yard scamper to knot the game at 14-14.

“A lot of credit has to go to the offensive line in this one,” said Rosenberger. “They played tough all night and established physicality early on. You could see as the game went on they got stronger.”

A 61-yard burst by Madera up the middle gave Thorpe the lead early in the second quarter, but Salisbury would make it a one-point game with 4:32 remaining in the half on a 30-yard strike from Quintin Stephens to Kyle Pingarelli.

Fast forward to the fourth quarter, when all the action took place in the second half. After making some key adjustments defensively — not letting Stephens break contain and make plays out of the pocket, the Olympians were able to take control.

Leading again by one (failed two-point attempt by Salisbury) after exchanging scores early in the fourth, the Thorpe offense came up with the play of the night and perhaps the play of the season.

From its own 46, and with 8:30 remaining, the Olympians dialed up a flea flicker. Thorpe quarterback Davier Calcano found a streaking Noah Snisky in the middle of the field around the Salisbury 25 and Snisky did the rest, making one man miss and taking it the distance.

Snisky made a nice play on the ball, coming back for it a bit and out-leaping two Falcons defenders to come down with the ball.

“The flea flicker is personally my favorite play we have. I knew I had to come back and go up and get it or I wasn’t going to get to it,” said Snisky. “Then I was able to out run the defenders to the corner and get in.”

Snisky’s big play was a big blow that Salisbury never recovered from.

After forcing a Falcons’ punt, Thorpe tacked on an insurance score to go up 41-26, and then ended the game with an Ethan Gavornik interception of Stephens in the end zone.

BIG 33 ... The Olympians’ senior class tallied 33 wins in its four years, tying the school record.

RUSHING DUO ... Selby and Madera ended their Thorpe careers in fantastic fashion, combining for 351 yards rushing and four touchdowns.