Maybe it was the pressure of playing for gold in the biggest game of their lacrosse careers with a big home crowd watching that led to the meltdown of the Prince George Posse.
Or maybe they thought it was going to be easy to steamroll the Port Moody Thunder after they'd beaten the Lower Mainland
champions handily the day before at the provincial A2 midget
championship.
Whatever the reason for the Posse's downfall, with gold on the line Sunday afternoon at Kin 1, Port Moody spanked the Posse 7-2 and did it the old-fashioned lacrosse way, letting the ball do the work with a terrific display of passing and teamwork topped with some high-grade individual finish around the net.
Goals by Jake Frane, Connor Whyte and Ryan McBeth put the Posse down 3-0 before the eight-minute mark. Frane and Rhys Blake increased the deficit to 5-1 by the end of the second period.
The Thunder swarmed the Posse with blanket coverage, forcing turnovers, bad passes and rushed shots that goalie Ryan Popkey, the tournament MVP, had no trouble seeing. Cole McMilllan and Ryan Johannson added to the total in the third period. Jake McIntosh, in the first period, and Andrew Heitman, in the third, were the Posse goalscorers.
"We found out (after losing 6-2 to the Posse in the round robin Saturday) what their strengths and weaknesses are and from there we just gave it our all," said Popkey. "We started to notice after they started smoking some of the teams in our pool that they are a pretty big deal. We needed to find what their weakness was and it really was just pressuring them and making them give up the ball more."
The Thunder knew they had to change tactics after Prince George came within 3 1/2 minutes of shutting them out in Saturday's game.
"All of our guys came to play today and it was nice to watch," said Port Moody head coach Lance Schindel. "We didn't know what we were getting into with Prince George. We knew they were a B team that got moved into A2 (for the provincial tournament) and our guys took (Saturday's) game a bit too lightly and it showed. Today they came back and made up for it.
"We were absolutely amazed with the level of talent they've got here. Yesterday we knew it was going to come down to ourselves and Prince George in the final and I thought it would be closer. But we managed to get three quick goals and that pushed them back on their game style."
Having demolished most of the tournament opponents this year on the B circuit, adversity like they faced Sunday was something new to the Posse and the element of surprise, which worked so well for them in the first four games of the tournament taking on teams they had never faced, was gone.
"It just seemed we couldn't get inside on these guys to get good scoring chances," said Posse assistant captain Bobby Legare. "We just weren't ready for it. Playing against teams like that all year would have helped a lot."
Legare said he was nervous before the game to the point where he felt sick and several of his teammates also felt that way, knowing it was the last game of their minor lacrosse careers after playing together for more than a decade.
"I never thought we'd make it this far," said Legare, fighting back tears. "I'm proud of what we accomplished here. It made a lot of good memories. We're a close group. Everybody works hard but sometimes we don't work smart, and I think that was the problem in this game. We just blinked and we were down 3-0 and we can't start off a game like that especially against a team like that. It's pretty disappointing."
Prince George beat Kamloops 9-4 and Coquitlam 10-6 on Friday, then came close to shutting out Port Moody before moving on to a 7-1 semifinal win Nanaimo Saturday night.
"Three goals right away kind of took the wind out of our sails," said Posse co-coach Blake McIntosh. "We just couldn't do the little things - winning the loose balls, catching the passes, making good passes. It wasn't the smartest game we've played this season and the pressure and atmosphere of a championship game just magnifies that.
"They saw our system the first game and made adjustments and it didn't seem like we made any adjustments on offence. As much as I preached motion, our right-handers maybe stood back and watched a little bit. There were no second opportunities a lot of the time, they're very good on loose balls."
Still, there were six teams in the A2 tournament that would gladly switch places with the Posse in a heartbeat as silver medalists.
"That's kind of the silver lining, no pun intended," said coach McIntosh. "It worked to our advantage, not seeing any (A2) teams. I knew we'd be competitive. It just showed the boys can play with the strong teams in the province and I'm really proud of them."
The Thunder went 2-1 in the round-robin, beating Coquitlam 9-3 and Kamloops 7-5 before their loss to the Posse. Port Moody went on to beat Port Coquitlam 6-2 in the semifinals.
Nanaimo won A2 bronze, topping Port Coquitlam 6-5.
