Once they found their legs, there was no stopping the Save-On-Foods A2 bantam Posse lacrosse team at the Rock the House tournament in Armstrong.
After opening with a 7-5 loss to host North Okanagan, the Posse reeled off nothing but victories, including a 6-5 triumph over the hosts in Sunday's final.
"We got a little redemption there," said Posse co-coach Blake McIntosh. "We were never trailing in the final but we got into penalty trouble at the end and they came back with a couple of goals."
Led by Jake McIntosh, who had two goals in the final, the Posse offence hit its stride with wins over Penticton (8-3) and Ridge Meadows (6-3) to advance to the medal round.
"Some of the games were quite physical, maybe a bit chippy," said coach McIntosh. "The boys are starting to play well in both ends of the floor and we have solid goaltending [from Jonathon Wittmeier], which is a factor. We're pretty strong on the left side shooting and all three lines are contributing."
Dawson Ellery, Alex Nimmo and Skyler Roy also scored for the Posse in the final.
Ten of the 14 Posse players are second-year bantams. The roster also includes Justin Wittmeier, Nick Hansen, Bobby Legare, Ethan Brown, Hayden Kerr, Griffin Wal, Douglas Porter, Talen Bentram, Andrew Heitman and goalie Jonathon Wittmeier. Heitman is sidelined for the rest of the season with a broken wrist.
"We seem to be really competitive throughout the province so we're trying to build for provincials [July 18-20 in Delta] and these tournaments will give us an idea what we'll face competition-wise," added McIntosh.
Meanwhile, in the south Okanagan at the Penticton Barnburner tournament, the understaffed Prince George Deloitte midget B Posse won the silver medal, despite having just 10 runners for the three-day tournament.
The only loss for the midget Posse came in Sunday's final, a 10-5 defeat at the hands of Shuswap, the defending midget B provincial champions. By that time, the Posse was feeling the effects of having played four games against teams stocked with 15 or 18 players.
"We came in first in the round-robin tournament but against Shuswap we ran out of gas," said midget Posse co-coach Scott Anderson. "We did awesome with just 10 runners and we had to work really hard to get there. Shuswap had 18 runners and you could see our guys just didn't have it in 'em. We just needed a few more bodies on the floor to keep up."
Prince George also beat Coquitlam (6-4), Penticton (6-4) and Comox (10-6).
The midgets expect to have Jared Stevens, Wyatt Turcotte, Braedon Lalonde, and Parker Kerkhof back in the lineup by then. Injuries kept Stevens and Turcotte out of the lineup in Penticton, while Lalonde and Kerkhof had family commitments.
That left the Posse short of left-handed shooters. Despite some superhuman offensive efforts from lefties Todd Bredo and Brogan O'Brien and the fearless hitting of captain Brandin Daychief and Steve Kidwell, they couldn't match the Shuswap firepower. The midget Posse lost to Shuswap in the final of the Kamloops Rattlesnake tournament two weeks ago.
Keith Bizicki played all the minutes in goal for Prince George. Also suiting up for midget Posse were Maxim Basi, Sera Sia, Andrew Sivell, Jason Wagner, Shelby Watson and Chance Harper of Vanderhoof.
The midgets and bantams will now turn their focus to the Canada Day tournament in Calgary, June 29-July 1.
