The Prince George Posse had the Saanich Tigers by the tail, the peewee A2 provincial lacrosse title within reach.
All it took for that trip to the top of the podium to slip away from the P.G. boys was one five-minute letup in the second period in the provincial final Sunday in Coquitlam.
The Tigers scored six goals in that span and suddenly the Posse's 4-3 lead turned to a 10-4 deficit.
The Posse got its act together again in the third period but the damage had been done. The Tigers walked off with trophy with an 11-7 win and the Posse came home silver medalists.
"We had a very strong group of kids and we just fell short at the end," said Posse head coach Jeff Moleski.
"We outshot them and outplayed them, but just couldn't find the back of the net. Their goalie played extremely well and they had one player (tournament MVP Luke Neary) who had seven goals."
In the semifinal round, Prince George beat New Westminster 6-5, while Saanich needed two overtime periods to defeat Nanaimo 10-9. The Posse won its pool after beating Coquitlam 10-1, Saanich 7-6 and a 5-4 loss to Ridge Meadows.
The Posse squad of 12 runners and two goalies drew from a pool of 42 peewee-aged (11- and 12-year-old) players in the Prince George Minor Lacrosse Association and came into the final having played just 10 games together this season. Saanich, which plays in the Vancouver Island A2 peewee league, had 30 regular season games and four tournaments (A2 and A1) behind them by the time they took on the Posse and that lack of rep team game experience was a factor in the final, Moleski admitted.
"That's the challenging part about living up north, but we should have beat them, we had them," Moleski said.
"We just had a mental lapse in the second period and it was tough from there to come back. Hopefully the kids come back hungry and learn from it."
Moleski pulled double-duty as coach of the Prince George peewee B Posse at the provincial tournament in Coquitlam and they came within a whisker of advancing to the semifinals.
The Posse opened with a 10-6 win over Ridge Meadows, defeated Coquitlam 6-5, then lost 4-2 Peninsula. Because there were three teams tied for second with identical 2-1 records, the second playoff qualifier in that pool was decided by goal differential and the Posse lost that tiebreaker by one goal.
"That was tough, it came down to goals-for and goals-against and (Peninsula) scored with one second left in our game to make it 4-2 and they made the playoffs," said Moleski.
A2 Posse goalie Nolan Vansickle was picked for the all-star team, while Dalton Barwise won the fair play award for his team. Liam Hunter of the B Posse was an all-star selection and fair play award winner.
The B Posse won the team fair play award.
