The Prince George Posse was riding high in Calgary.
The city's midget B rep lacrosse team steamrolled its opponents last weekend at the Canada Day tournament, outscoring the five teams it faced by a whopping 42-10 margin, including an 8-2 win over the Lethbridge Barracudas in the gold medal game.
That gave the Posse its second straight Canada Day tournament title in the midget B division.
"We played pretty strong in the five games we had," said Posse head coach Blake McIntosh. "Lethbridge looked like they were beating the same teams by the same margins so we thought it might be a tough game, but the boys played a pretty complete game all three periods. We just took it to them and won decisively."
The core of the Posse has been together since they were peewee-aged (11- and 12-year-olds) and McIntosh has an arsenal of clutch players who exerted their dominance in the 11-team tournament.
"I've had a number of kids since peewee and the second-years for sure have certainly gotten stronger and faster," said McIntosh. "Skill-wise they've gained experience over the years and they're certainly putting it all together."
The Posse's top scoring line of Jake Nohr, Fischer O'Brien, Jackson Parrish and Connor Dionne - all second-year midgets - found the net regularly, while first-year midgets Jaydon Merritt and Daniel Sturgeon also were standouts offensively in Calgary.
Fifteen-year-old Konnor McIntosh is not as offensively gifted as his older brother Jake, who plays in the B.C. Junior Lacrosse League for the Delta Islanders, but his ability to kill penalties and retain ball possession was key in the run to the tournament title.
Liam Froese handled the netminding duties for the Posse.
Also joining forces on the Pose were Devin Porter, Grayson Pement, Tanner Turcotte, Logan Forman, Mathew Letoria, Thomas Ginter, Marshall Schonewille, Griffin Gouger-Davis and Riley Stevens.
The Posse has been getting progressively better tournament results this season, playing mostly A2 opponents, starting with a fifth-place result in Maple Ridge. The team finished fourth in Penticton and placed second two weekends ago in Langley. Last year's provincial silver medalists will be vying for gold at the midget B championship in Burnaby, July 25-28.
"We've declared to go midget B, but it's the old adage, you don't know at the beginning of the season what you will be like because we don't have league games and you just have to gauge yourselves on tournament play," said coach McIntosh. "We're definitely going to be very competitive at B and I think we would have been competitive at A2, but you never know until you play."
Tom Esopenko and Doug Schonewille are the midget B Posse assistant coaches. Schonewille will coach of the Zone 8 squad at the B.C. Summer Games in Comox, July 12-15, and several Pose players will be part of that regional team.
Four other Prince George teams played in the Calgary tournament. The bantam A Pose coached by Ken Barwise placed seventh out of 12 teams with a 1-1-2 record. The peewee A Posse team coached by Jeff Moleski ended up sixth at 2-2-0, the same record as the fifth-place peewee B Posse coached by James Larmand. In the novice division, the Posse team coached by Chad Martin and Clayton Eyles placed 11th with an 0-4 record.
The Prince George Posse bantams will compete in the A2 provincial championship in Richmond this weekend.
