The Duchess Park Condors have booked themselves a berth in the P.G. Bowl high school football championship next week and it certainly wasn’t easy.
They dethroned the defending North Zone champion College Heights Cougars with a 21-14 semifinal victory on a chilly Friday night at Masich Place Stadium.
As usual, Noah Lank was a big difference-maker for the Condors. Give him the ball and it’s like trying to tackle a raging bull. On the other side of the field from his linebacker position, he mercilessly punished Cougar ball carriers with shoulder-to-chest hits that could be heard in the stands. He took the breath away from the Cougars and it couldn’t have been a pleasant sensation trying to recover from the weight on his 215-pound body coming at them at full speed.
Tied 7-7 late in the third quarter, Lank took off on an eight-yard slant into the end zone. Euan Murray made the convert and the Condors led 14-7. The Duchess Park line held up to a fourth-down gamble and they took over the ball on the Cougar 38-yard line. Quinn Neukomm then connected with Murray on a 27-yard passing play, and on the first play of the fourth quarter, Neukomm found Carson Briere for an 11-yard touchdown strike.
Neukomm did not have to go to the air as often as he did in last week’s 26-20 loss to PGSS in their final game of the regular season but he mixed up the plays enough to keep the Cougars guessing. The Grade 12 quarterback is looking forward to his chance for redemption after losing by two points to College Heights in the junior P.G. Bowl final two years ago.
“Every year you dream of it and I’m excited - the last time was Grade 10 and we couldn’t quite do it but this year, hopefully it all comes together for a little revenge,” said Neukomm. “The running game was great and Noah was running great. The line gets better every week and I have a little more time to get the ball off.”
The Condors struck first with six minutes left in the second quarter. Lank hit Slavik on quarterback sneak and forced a fumble that was recovered by Condors’ Reece Wuthridge. On the next play, Murray cut into the middle and caught a pass from Neukomm and used his speed to run it 43 yards across the goal line. The Cougars’ offence went right back to work. Damien McMaster carried the ball 30 yards across midfield and Decker Passey made a clutch catch which set up Norberg’s 19-yard catch-and-run scoring play.
“They’re a great team, they’ve got players that can make plays and coaches that know the game and we knew this was going to be a battle, it just came down to a couple plays,” said Condors head coach Craig Briere.
“In a close game when both teams are evenly-matched and well-coached it comes down to those little mistakes. Our guys made the play and we got the fumble and it led to something.”
The Condors’ defence had great success getting into the backfield in the second half and kept College Heights quarterback Isaac Slavik in scramble mode. Lank, Spencer Jamieson and Matyas Mocilac (until he suffered a knee injury late in the game) were especially effective in the late stages. They draped themselves all over Slavik and his running backs, Taeman Piddocke, Brayden Adams and Matthew Norberg and stopped the Cougars in their tracks.
“This game was a lot of fun,” said Jamieson, a Grade 12 linebacker/offensive lineman who had never played football before this year. “All I can say is thanks to my coaches because they’re the ones who prepared us for this game and that’s the reason we won.
“I’ve been in Prince George all my life and it means a lot to come back after the off-season due to COVID and be able to advance to the next round and sort of take back the game that College Heights won (in the 2019 junior final).”
But there was no quit in College Heights. Jamieson tackled Slavik for his second QB sack of the quarter and an eight-yard loss with about five minutes left and that helped spark the Cougar offence back to life. Norberg hauled in a Slavik pass for a 32-yard gain deep into Condor territory and after a couple misfires, Slavik called his own number and scampered into the end zone from 14 yards out. Kohl Rink booted the convert and with less than two minutes left, Rink’s short kickoff attempt failed to travel the required 10 yards and the Condors were able to run out the clock.
“It was a very even game, Duchess Park just made a few more plays when it counted,” said Cougars head coach Tommy Heinzelman. “(Jamieson and Lank) were just killers against us the entire night and it was hard to defend them and run the ball and pass against them, they just made the plays.
“We came a long ways; we lost to these guys 23-0 at the beginning of the year, so to keep it a one-score game, it’s a testament to our team improving.”
Slavik, one of 11 seniors on the College Heights roster, was obviously hoping to have a chance at winning the zone title and moving on to play the top double-A varsity teams in the province, but that won’t happen.
“It was definitely an emotional game for the Grade 12s – this was an important game and we had to put it all on the line,” said Slavik, while fighting back tears. “This is the best team I’ve ever had, going from when I was seven years old to now. Everyone worked hard and it was an all-out effort. The other team just executed better than us.”
The Condors will play the Prince George Polars next Friday in the P.G. Bowl final for the right to be the top-seed from the North in the B.C. Secondary Schools Football Association playoffs the following weekend. The Polars dispatched the Kelly Road Shas Ti Grizzlies 45-0 in Friday’s other semifinal at Masich. That game ended after one half when the Grizzlies defaulted the win to the Polars.
“(The Grizzlies) said the refs weren’t doing their job protecting their players and they weren’t going to come out for the second half,” said Polars line coach Justin Wittmeier. “We were kind of shocked because we didn’t think the game was that bad, there was one injury in the half but… From what I saw they were doing a decent, fair game. There were flags on both sides so they weren’t just picking on one team.”
Kaleb Lizotte collected two TD passes from quarterback Jason Kragt and Kurtis Vohar had three majors on the ground to spice the PGSS offence. Ethan Boxtart’s 49-yard interception set up a four-yard romp into the end zone for Kragt.
The Cougars and Grizzlies will play each other for third place in the early game at Masich next Friday.
