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Bears laugh last in midget final Ken Henry, The Province
The North Surrey Bears posed with the Grey Cup minutes before Sunday's midget provincial final. Then, they went and played like they were competing for it. The defending champion Bears capped off a memorable season in front of about 300 fans at B.C. Place Stadium, upending the favoured Mission Niners 24-6. "When you watch the B.C. Lions just destroy those guys it gets in your head, 'We can do that, too,'" said Bears lineman Aman Sundher. "[The Lions] aren't much more intense than we are. They're bigger and stronger, but we've got the same motivation as they do." While pictures with the Grey Cup served as inspiration, North Surrey was driven by something much deeper than that: a chance to prove everybody wrong. When veteran head coach Joe Connelly returned to the team after a four-year hiatus, some people scoffed. The jeers grew louder when North Surrey stumbled to a 2-4 start and was in danger of missing the playoffs. But on Sunday, the only ones laughing were the Bears. "Nobody thought we'd win," said talented receiver Jordan Linnen. "We were underdogs when we came into this. Everyone thought we were the bottom of the pile, but we came back to [finish the season at] 6-4 and win the championship. That's got to mean something." It means that the strategies of Connelly and offensive co-ordinator Nick Kawaza paid off. On defence, the Bears paid no attention to Mission's running game and instead focused on shutting down gun-slinging quarterback Stuart Taylor. It worked, as the defensive line of Sundher, Jona Dabea, Calvin Johnson and Gurpreet Dhaliwal sacked Taylor twice and, more importantly, forced him to rush his passes. That resulted in four interceptions for North Surrey, two by Karl Delong and one each from Ryan Taylor and Danny Amaro. On offence, Kawaza designed a running scheme that revolved around 6-foot-2, 220-pound power back Erik Middlebrook and speedy scatback Amaro. The result was 97 rushing yards for Amaro and 95 for Middlebrook, who scored three touchdowns. Jordan Fallis rounded out the scoring with a 26-yard field goal, while Tyler Johnson had the lone touchdown for Mission. "Everybody thought we were a 2-4 team," Connelly said. "But we were just playing a lot of young kids. Once the crunch time came, we started to go with the players that could step up. "Everybody took us for granted. They still thought we were a 2-4 team. But we knew we weren't." They proved it on Sunday.
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