With provincials on the horizon, the Prince George Posse played its best games of the season.
The Posse, a rep team from the local minor lacrosse association, dominated the competition in the midget B division at the Canada Day Tournament in Calgary on the weekend and was handed gold as a reward. In Monday's championship final, Prince George defeated the Blackfalds Warriors 9-2. For the Posse, the victory capped a perfect 5-0 showing at the prestigious event.
"This was our fourth tournament and in some of the other ones we've had to go through some growing pains and learn a little bit from our first couple," said head coach Tom Esopenko. "We started gelling and getting better as a team - working more of a team game - so this last one, it started to show through. Our boys started to play together as a team, worked their lines, worked our power plays and our short man and really were getting into it."
The Posse also beat the Warriors in the last game of preliminary play, 7-3 on Sunday night. Prince George started the tournament with a 7-2 win on Saturday morning against the Calgary Hornets. Later that day, the Posse downed the High River Heat 5-1. Early Sunday afternoon, the Posse was back on the floor against the Strathmore Venom and ran to a 10-0 victory.
The Canada Day event was founded in 1977 and, with divisions ranging from novice to midget, is now the largest indoor lacrosse tournament in North America. Claiming a division championship is no easy feat.
"This is a good one for our team - going to such a big tournament and coming out with gold, it's huge," Esopenko said. "Our boys worked hard and it paid off. It's a huge stepping stone in getting prepped and ready for provincials. We have provincials coming up in two weeks in Langley so it was a really big boost to get this under our cap and know that we can come out on top."
The Posse will also be in the midget B division at the provincial gathering and Esopenko likes the club's chances for success.
"I think we are going to be a really strong contender," he said. "A lot of the teams we haven't faced, from the Lower Mainland, they don't know what we have to bring to the table and I think we're going to do really well.
"We have two weeks to hone our skills for the provincials and we're shooting to go there and come back with a medal."
Members of the Posse are Liam Froese, Gage Prince, Kaleb Hallet, Max Arnold, Devin Krahn, Jake Nohr, Jackson Parrish, Riley Stevens, Fischer O'Brien, Caleb Mueller, Konnor McIntosh, Connor Dionne, Brendan Telford and Jordan Hickey. Esopenko is assisted by Blake McIntosh.
At the Canada Day Tournament, Posse teams also competed in the bantam A and novice A divisions. The bantam Posse finished with a 2-2 record (9-4 loss to CaliLax, 8-6 win against Victoria-Esquimalt, 7-2 win against BarracudaLAX, 7-3 loss to HOKS) while the novice Posse went 1-3. The novice squad opened with an 8-5 victory against the Calgary Sabrecats but then dropped games to Calgary Hornets 1 (8-3), the Calgary Axemen (8-5) and the Okotoks Raiders (9-5).
