Leading 4-3 in the first half, Jenna LaCroix and Marley Kierstead scored for the No. 1 Bears to pad the team’s lead. JD got within 8-6 in the second half, but BR reeled off four straight goals to take a 12-6 lead in the final minutes.

Thursday was Bear River’s second playoff game after beating Sky View 16-2 in the semifinal round — the Bears advanced past the first round via forfeit — following a regular season in which the Bears outscored their opponents 294-57.

After flying through a non-region schedule against the likes of Farmington, Box Elder, Jordan, Bingham and American Fork, the Bears won their 10 4A North region games by an average of 16.3 goals.

A year ago, the Bears went 15-2 with their only losses coming to Box Elder and then Waterford in a first-round playoff game.

With Thursday’s championship in hand, that makes it a combined 34-2 record with back-to-back region titles between the last two seasons for Bear River.

This season was the first year in which lacrosse was played in a traditional classification format.

Last season — this is also how the postseason worked before lacrosse was sanctioned — all the lacrosse teams were split into three playoff divisions based on where they landed in the RPI.