The feeling of being a part of three consecutive boys’ basketball state championships is enough to numb even the most extreme pain.

Just ask Zach Stahl.

The Hopkins junior center from Hopkins jumped to the Target Center court from the third step of the ladder used to cut down the nets following the Royals’ 64-52 victory over Eden Prairie in the Class 4A championship game.

Mere seconds earlier, coach Ken Novak Jr. informed a small media gathering that Stahl is set for surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee.

“There is no way I was not going to play this game,” Stahl said. “Right now, I don’t feel pain at all. I feel like Superman.”

Stahl’s 10 points and eight rebounds were part of a complete effort for the Royals. Four players finished in double digits in the game, capped when star guard Joe Coleman scored the final four points of his high school career to ice it.

His drive through the lane drew a foul and was good for two points with 75 seconds to go. He missed the free throw, but got his own rebound and sunk a floater through traffic for the game’s final points.

Coleman finished with a game-high 22 points, including those final four and a backboard-rattling slam dunk in the first half.

“I didn’t want to go to college with a loss in the state championship,” said Coleman, a future Gopher. “That’s not a good note to end on. I wanted to make sure for our school and our team that we got it done.”

Playing in its first-ever state championship game, Eden Prairie (27-5) had some confidence as the only team to have defeated Hopkins (31-1) this season. But the Eagles found themselves in a position few teams ever survive against the run-and-gun Royals: playing catchup.

Hopkins, the top-seeded team in the tournament, held a four-point lead at halftime — after Eden Prairie shot 64.7 percent in the first half to stay close — then opened the second half on a 14-2 run.

After Hopkins led by as many as 16 with 11:21 to go in the game, Eden Prairie cut it to six. But Stahl’s pretty jumper in the paint with about

2:30 to play to upped the lead back to eight. Eden Prairie coach David Flom called it “the play of the game.”

The company in charge of printing championship banners for Hopkins High School has been a profitable and busy group lately.

Saturday’s three-peat, the first Class 4A school to do so, came one week after Hopkins’ girls’ team won its third championship since 2004.

“That was more pressure than the three-peat,” Novak said.