The easy part of the season is over for the Prince George junior bantam Axemen.
Their quest for a 12-man minor football provincial championship resumes on Sunday in Kelowna and the Mission Lions are no certainly no pushovers.
In fact, just like the Axemen, the Lions are undefeated this season. Mission went a perfect 10-0 in winning the Southern Interior Minor Football Association title, and like the Axemen (9-0), they annihilated their opponents.
The latest one-sided victory for the Axemen happened last Sunday in Kelowna, where they doused the Kelowna Dragons 48-8 in a preliminary round playoff game. The Dragons were the sixth-place team in the Interior league.
"We didn't know what to expect from them but we got off to a really good start and returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown, then we did an onside kick and recovered that and our first play was a touchdown," said Axemen head coach Matt Pearce.
The Axemen led 16-0 one minute into the game and were ahead 30-0 at the end of the first quarter. Colburn Pearce scored the first two touchdowns and picked up three more majors in the game.
The winner of Sunday's game will advance to the provincial semifinals against a Lower Mainland or Vancouver Island team. The Axemen have seen a few internet video clips of the Lions in action but lack a detailed scouting report.
"From what we've seen online, they don't really throw the ball, but they run the ball pretty effectively and the defence is pretty good," said Matt Pearce. "They play keepaway with the ball and just hold onto the ball for long periods of time so you don't have many opportunities to score on them, because they dominate time of possession if you can't stop the running game."
If the Axemen do win, then they'll figure out their practice schedule for next week and determine how they will fund another trip south. So far, the two trips to Kelowna will cost the team nearly $10,000. A portion of that bill was covered by the Prince George Minor Football Association but the bulk of it will be paid for by the parents.
"It's $3,500 to get a charter down there, then you have hotel rooms and food," said Pearce. "Teams form the north are at a disadvantage when we have to put in those kind of miles."
The Axemen are healthy and will be taking a full team of 22 players to Kelowna. Two of their players -- Austin Edson and Steven Herzig -- played for the Prince George secondary school Polars junior varsity team, which played South Kamloops in a provincial high school playoff game in Kamloops Thursday night.
Two other PGMFA champions, in the atom and peewee divisions, are in action Saturday in nine-man minor football provincial championship games in Kamloops. The Prince George peewee Axemen will play the Victoria Spartans in the peewee final at noon at Hillside Stadium, while at 2:30 p.m., the Prince George Stashers face the Kamloops Broncos in the atom provincial final.
