The Duchess Park Condors knew they'd have to play the game of their lives to keep the Prince George Polars from getting their mitts on the P.G. Bowl.
They knew from previous experience the veteran-laden, heavily-favoured Polars would be fierce opponents to overcome.
On a cool but dry pre-Halloween evening Friday at Masich Place Stadium, in a game to decide senior high school football bragging rights, the Polars lived up to expectations and clobbered the two-time defending-champion Condors 50-13.
Running back Trent Price scored his first of three touchdowns on the Polars' first possession, a six-yard run, and combined with Isaac Rogers to shred the Condors defence.
"It feels great to win it, I love it, it's a once-in-a-lifetime feeling," said the five-foot-10, 225-pound Price, who chose football over hockey at age 6 and has played the game ever since. "We didn't play as well as we should have in offence but we had a tough defence. It was a fun game to play.
"I never want high school to end."
Price capped the scoring in the fourth quarter with a faked punt he turned into a 92-yard major. Reid Willliams and Josh O'Neill also punched the ball over the goalline for the Polars. The Condors, who trailed 23-6 at halftime, got their points on touchdown passes from quarterback Colburn Pearce to Corbin Pierin and Gage Reimer. But with veteran Polar defenders Nick Von Bieker, Rylan Anderson, Jujhar Sandhu, Reid Williams, Johnny Tatla, Spencer Vohar, Bradly Woods, Zachary Nikal, Tyrell Laing and Justin Wittmeier applying smothering pressure, the Condors offence wilted.
"We play a pretty physical brand of football, both offence and defence, and wore Duchess out a bit," said PGSS head coach Brett Morrow. "We went to our horses, Trent Price and Isaac Rogers."
The Condors' cause suffered a crippling blow when they lost one of their most valuable weapons on the third play of the game. Running back/middle linebacker Jacob Cundy got his leg twisted in a tackle and suffered a broken foot. Then in the second quarter, six-foot-three 260-pound lineman Cody Cruse, another key Condor cog on both sides of the field, left the game with hip flexor injury.
Without Cundy and Cruse, trying to stop run threat posed by Price and Rogers was nightmare scenario for the Duchess Park defence, and it got worse just before halftime when outside linebacker Jonah McKinnon went down with a concussion.
"PGSS was playing well and we stopped them a ton of times but we could have used another six guys -- they were bigger and older than us," said Condors co-coach Richard Bundock. "Our boys fought right to the end. I was extremely proud of the kids and how far they dug in."
Condors fullback/linebacker Zack Bundock, called into service as the lone middle linebacker filling the gaps behind a seven-man defensive line formation, never left the field and like the rest of this teammates, he got pounded. By the second half, the Condors had just 16 available bodies.
"It was a tough battle, especially with losing Jacob right away and then Cody, we had to improvise with players in new positions they'd never practiced, let alone played," said Zack Bundock. "It's hard when you've got a bunch of (offensive) linemen pulling and you still have to make the tackle. It hurt by the end, just because of so many hits. I'm just hurting all over. Everyone played lots."
In Friday's third-place game, the Nechako Valley Vikings of Vanderhoof blanked the Correlieu Clan of Quesnel 44-0.
The core of the Polars has been together for six or seven years, with 12 graduating seniors on a 22-player roster. Morrow is proud of the way his team has reeled off seven straight victories in 2015, with what he hopes are more wins to come in the double-A varsity B.C. High School Football Association playoffs.
"We had goals coming into this year and wanted to dominate up north and go undefeated and win the P.G. Bowl -- it's only the second varsity P.G. Bowl PGSS has ever won," said Morrow. "We want to go down south and makes some noise. We're not making any predictions, we're going to go down and play hard and try to be the first team from the north to ever win a game at the varsity level."
Two years ago in Kamloops, the junior varsity Polars became the first-ever Northern Conference team to advance past the first round of provincial playoffs when they beat the South Kamloops Titans 53-0. Most of the players now on the PGSS senior squad were part of that junior team. PGSS played triple-A Rutland to a 23-23 tie just before the season started in September.
"It's definitely a higher competition level down there," said Price. "We just have to work hard, play hard and we'll see how it goes."
The Polars will be the home team against the fourth-place finishers from the Fraser Valley (Eastern Conference) in a one-game quarterfinal matchup Nov. 13 in Kamloops. PGSS's opponent will either be Robert Bateman of Abbotsford or Pitt Meadows. The Condors' season will also continue Nov. 13 at Abbotsford Secondary, the second-place Eastern Conference finisher.
