On a wet and sloppy Masich Place Stadium field last week, Jacob Cundy had a firm grip on the task at hand.
He set the tone for the Duchess Park Condors, rushing for four touchdowns in a 60-6 B.C. High School Football Association Northern Conference semifinal romp over the Correlieu Clan, which qualified the Condors for Friday's winner-take-all P.G. Bowl clash with the Prince George Polars.
Bothered by an elbow injury which left him unable to throw the ball three weeks ago, the 15-year-old Cundy has been forced him to switch from quarterback to tailback and he made mincemeat of the Clan defence.
"He was tremendous, I don't know if he went down on the first contact even once in the game, he broke a lot of tackles," said Condors co-coach Matt Pearce.
The Condors know Cundy will have to come up big again on Friday to upset the heavily-favoured, senior-laden Polars, who outscored their opponents 208-26 in five regular season games.
Many of the veterans who led the Condors to the past two senior P.G. Bowl titles have graduated and they now have just four Grade 12s, but they still have senior experience at most positions and Cundy is convinced they have what it takes to win Friday.
"We're pretty confident, we're a lot stronger team than we were a month ago -- we're the defending champions and we're going to play our hearts out to keep that trophy at Duchess and away from the Polars," said Cundy.
"When I made the transfer to running back I guess they found a bit more spark in our offence running behind our big dogs like Cody (Cruse) and Brett (Stubbs) and that's really helped us step our game up and I think the next time we play PGSS will be lot different from the last meeting."
In their only head-to-head meeting with Duchess Park this season, Oct. 2, the Polars crushed the Condors 54-18.
Colburn Pearce has filled in for Cundy as senior team quarterback and the fleet-footed Pearce is showing the same instincts which have made him so effective as the junior Condors pivot.
"Colburn plays on the junior team and has been raised with football, his dad (Matt) played in the CFL and he's been around the game a fair bit, so having him step into the quarterback position gives us a quarterback who knows what he's doing: said Cundy. "He's able to run the ball, hand the ball off and he's able to throw the ball too."
Polars middle linebacker Reid Williams is well aware of the threat the shifty Cundy poses when he's carrying the ball and the Condors also have veteran fullback Zack Bundock and Pearce to worry about. Pearce scored an 80-yard touchdown on quarterback-keeper last week against Correlieu and also scored on a long interception.
With Pearce taking the snaps from centre in the junior P.G. Bowl Wednesday night at Masich Place Stadium the Condors led the junior Polars 39-6 early in the fourth quarter.
"We just have to be disciplined on defence and don't get out of position," said the five-foot-11, 215-pound Williams, who helped the Polars skunk the Nechako Valley Vikings 39-0 in a playoff semifinal last Friday.
The biggest thing is stopping the run and worry about the pass later. Our secondary will get the job done stopping the pass game. Our defence has been playing lights-out all year - 12 of those points we gave up against Duchess were because we fumbled on offence, so the defence really has only given up 14."
PGSS won the junior varsity P.G. Bowl in 2010 and 2013. The Polars beat Nechako Valley in overtime to win their only senior championship five years ago, but none of this year's PGSS team were on the senior team then.
If running backs Isaac Rogers and Trent Prince shred the Condor defence like they did last week against Nechako Valley (each rushed for 130 yards) and receiver Noah Williams hauls in passes like he's done all season (he nailed down two TD catches early against the Vikings), the Polars will be tough to beat.
Kaiden Witso will get the call as PGSS quarterback. The Polars defensive line revolves around Williams and defensive tackles Rylan Anderson and Nick Von Bieker.
The Condors won the senior PG Bowl last year, 21-16 over PGSS. Cundy scored the winning touchdowns late in the game on a short run.
"We're looking forward to this game, trying to make back what we lost last year," said Polars offensive co-ordinator Don Williams.
Game time Friday in 7 p.m. Correlieu will play Nechako Valley for third place starting at 5 p.m.
The winner advances to the B.C. High School Football Association double-A varsity playoffs against the fourth-place finisher from the East (Fraser Valley), a game which will be played in Kamloops (the closest turf field to Prince George). The P.G. Bowl runner-up will play at the home of the second-ranked team from the East. Both playoff games are set for Nov. 13.
