The College Heights Cougars had a pretty good idea they'd get clobbered on the high school football field Saturday afternoon and the Prince George Polars brought down the hammer.
They stomped the Cougars 50-8 at Masich Place Stadium to improve to 2-0 atop the B.C. High School Football Association double-A varsity standings.
The Polars are a veteran-laden team favoured to win the P.G. Bowl and they came up against a young Cougars squad loaded with 22 players who serve double-duty with the junior varsity team.
"We knew we were going to lose going into the game but we went out with a good mindset and they were a good team, hard to play against," said Cougars receiver Connor Adams.
The Polars showed that right away on their first possession when Isaac Rogers set the tone with his first of two first-half touchdowns. With the five-foot-nine, 225-pound Trent Price opening up seams on the field and quarterback Kaiden Witso crisply distributing the ball behind the line, Rogers saw plenty of daylight and easily surpassed the 100-yard mark with his rushes.
Joshua O'Neill and Witso also scored on running plays. Near the end of the first half, Grade 10 receiver Noah Williamsgot to the ball ahead of hard-hitting Cougar defender Ryan Payne and made a spectacular leaping grab in the end zone, planting his foot just before he stepped out of bounds, and PGSS led 36-0 at the half.
The Polars' older core -- Rogers, Witso, Price, Reid Williams, Justin Wittmeier, Nick Von Bieker and Johnny Tatla have played together for at least six years, dating back to their junior bantam minor football days with current PGSS coaches Don Williams and Brett Morrow. Some started building that chemistry at the atom level. Their familiarity with each other, on and off the field, is key to their success.
"It's kind of like having a second family, you've always got someone who's got your back," said the 17-year-old Rogers,
Noah Williams also played at defensive back and was a standout with two interceptions and nearly had a third. He's enjoying the ride as a junior playing up with the seniors.
"I thought the whole team played good and we got the win in the end, we came in pretty confident," said Williams. "It's a good experience playing with older people at such a high level and I'll have that experience for the next two years going into Grade 12. It's a brotherhood, we do everything together."
The Polars plan on making a push for a provincial title this season and got their first taste of a southern opponent three weeks ago in Kelowna where they tied triple-A Rutland 23-23.
"We still have a lot of stuff to correct," said Morrow. "We're not satisfied with the status quo, we want to be the first team from Prince George ever to win a game at provincials."
After some motivational words at halftime in the locker room from coaches Grant Erickson and Brad Paakkonen the Cougars showed more hustle in the second half and had better success stuffing the Polar rush, which led to a couple of confidence-building turnovers on downs.
"It got a little tough, it was a different game in the second half, they really rallied," said Rogers.
The Cougars' offence with quarterback Mitch Lukoni at the helm, finally came to life in the fourth quarter and Lukoni hooked up with Adams on a 57-yard TD scamper. Adams took off down the sideline with the ball and just managed to avoid a shoestring tackle attempt to get the Cougars on the scoreboard.
"My quarterback, Mitch, never throws to the left side but I kept telling him to throw left and he listened to me finally and we got ourselves a touchdown," said the Grade 10 Adams.
As good as they were moving at the ball on the ground, the Polars' big boys were crushers on defence and made that point clear to Cougars receiver Brandon Garwe near the end of the game when he spent too much time in no-man's land waiting to take a handoff from Lukoni. Four Polars converged on Garwe in a massive collision which left the Cougar dazed in a freefall to the turf as Tatla stripped the ball out of his hands and ran it back 40 yards untouched for his second defensive TD in two weeks.
Playing with a big lead, the Polars brought some of their second-stringers into the game in the second half. College Heights still got outscored 14-8 in the final 30 minutes, but it was a moral victory for the Cougars.
"We came out with a lot more energy and effort in the second half and overall played better as a team," said Paakkonen, who especially liked what his quarterback, Lukoni, had to offer in the late stages.
"Mitch is a gambler but he's slowly getting better. A lot of people don't even know he's only in Grade 10 and he still has two more years of this to go. He's easily one of the best quarterbacks in the North."
Now 2-0, the Polars are tied for first place with the Duchess Park Condors, the defending P.G. Bowl champions, who beat Corrrelieu 36-6 Friday night. In Friday's other game, the visiting South Kamloops Titans rolled to a 28-8 exhibition win over the Kelly Road Roadrunners.
PGSS and Duchess Park clash this Friday at 7 p.m. at Masich Place Stadium. The Cougars (0-2) play the Nechako Valley Vikings (0-2) Saturday in Vanderhoof.
