Don’t feel bad if you’re unaware that Noah Lank is one of the most impressive, hardest-working teenaged athletes this city has ever produced.
In baseball, Lank was the pitching ace of the Prince George Knights bantam team that won the B.C. Minor provincial championship in 2019 on home turf at Nechako Field – the first rep team games Lank ever played during all his years of minor baseball in Prince George because there were no other double-A teams in the northern zone for him to play.
In football, Lank joined the Duchess Park Condors junior varsity team in 2018 and after two seasons of running roughshod over the league he was all set to move up to the Condors senior squad and seize the Friday Night Lights spotlight at Masich Place Stadium when the pandemic hit and totally wiped out the 2020 season.
But that was only a minor blip and Lank continued his athletic development in relative obscurity. He worked double- and triple-time in the gym, pushing his body on training runs just so he could be in tip-top shape when it was time to give his Condors something they will never forget.
That something was what he showed on the football field Friday night at Masich in the Condors’ 35-12 win over the Prince George Polars in the P.G. Bowl final. Lank was the Polars’ worst nightmare come true – a one-man wrecking crew eating up yardage virtually every time he took the handoff from Duchess quarter back Quinn Neukomm – and a monster on defence, where his speed and tackling strength at linebacker was kryptonite to Polar drives.
“He’s just a great player overall and in this game you give the ball to your best players and allow them to be your best players , so we wanted to rely on Noah and have him carry the team on his back and he did that for us,” said Condors head coach Craig Briere.
For once, Lank was held out of the end zone, a small victory for a PGSS team that was hoping for another close game against their gridiron rivals. Unfortunately for Polars and their hopes of lifting the Matt Pearce Memorial Trophy as BCSSFA North Division champions, there were plenty of other touchdown heroes sporting yellow Condor jerseys.
Carson Briere was one on them. The Grade 12 receiver fought off an injury and emerged as Neukomm’s favourite target and his three TD catches were a shot to the gut of the Polars. Euan Murray was also a standout, not only for his accurate placekicks that converted all five Condor touchdowns but he also intercepted two passes thrown by Polars QB Jason Kragt, including a pick-six early in the third quarter deep in Polar territory that put the Condors up 28-6.
“I feels pretty good, it’s been a long time since that tough loss in the last (junior varsity) P.G. Bowl two years ago,” said Lank. “Right off the bat we threw an interception and it was tough but we came right back and just didn’t let anything get us down, we got leverage and just ran with it.”
Briere joined the Condors four years ago when he was in Grade 8 and he said the team struggled in some of those years just to recruit enough players to field a team. Now, in his final high school season, he can finally say he’s a champion.
“For tonight’s win we were looking for a little bit of redemption, they beat us last time (two weeks ago), said Briere. “It was a great team effort, but Noah clearly stood out.
“It felt good, because I haven’t been scoring too many touchdowns this year, I’ve been mostly marching the ball down the field, but it felt great to get those three touchdowns.”
The longest scoring play came on a third-down conversion in the first quarter when Neukomm hooked up with Aiden Lewis on a 51-yard pass-and-run into the end zone for a 13-6 lead.
On the opening drive, Logan Johnson intercepted a Neukomm pass but Lank came to the rescue and forced a fumble. That led to Briere’s opening major from eight yards out, after a PGSS face-masking penalty set up a first-and-goal situation. Not long after, with the ball on the PGSS 45-yard-line, Polars quarterback Jason Kragt went long and found Kaleb Lizotte on a 55-yard slant to bring the Polars within a point, down 7-6.
After Lewis scored, the Condors were threatening again until Peter Nyce made an interception on is team’s two-yard line. The Polars tried to run the ball but Lank tracked down Kurtis Vohar and punched the ball loose, which led to Briere’s three-yard score and a 20-6 lead.
Down 28-6, on a fourth-and-10 gamble, Kragt found receiver Dante Meyer for a 37-yard gain to the Condor nine and Kragt eventually punched the ball in to give the Polars some life, but their momentum quickly faded.
“I’m really proud of every person on the line and every person on the team, everyone played spectacularly,” said Condors centre Wesley Arrowsmith, whose blocking opened up some big holes for Lank. ”PGSS is a good team and it comes down to little mistakes in the end and we made a lot less, that’s what we worked for.”
The damp cool conditions led to six Polar turnovers and the Condors recovered five of them. When the Condors did make mistakes and the ball popped loose, more often than not, they were able to retain possession.
“We put the ball on the ground and they were more physical and made more plays,” said Polars assistant coach Brett Morrow, who selected the six-foot-two, 215-pound Lank as the Condor player of the game.
“He’s quick too, he’s not just big. He put in a lot of work in the off-season and it shows upon the field. He was the best player on the field.”
Lank showed the strength of his pitcher's arm on the final scoring play, in the fourth quarter, when he took the ball from Neukomm and chucked it 30 yards to Briere, who had an open field ahead of him into the end zone.
The Condors earned a a bye into the second round of the B.C. Secondary Schools Football Association playoffs and in two weeks they will host the winner of next Saturday’s PGSS-Vernon Secondary playoff in Vernon. Kragt knows the season is far from over for his team.
“We’ve still got a chance, we’ll fight for every inch and win by a mile,” said Kragt.
In the third-place game, the College Heights Cougars defeated the Kelly Road Shas Ti Grizzlies 51-8. Taeman Piddocke and Matt Norberg each scored two touchdowns. Isaack Slavik and Brayden Adams also scored TDs. Troy Eikum scored the major for the Grizzlies.
