Oh, how sweet revenge is for the McIntosh Chiefs lacrosse team.

A week after letting a two-goal lead slip away in the final 43 seconds in a loss to top-ranked Pope, ninth-ranked McIntosh avenged that heart-breaker with a convincing 12-5 victory Wednesday over visiting Pope to advance to the quarterfinals of the state playoffs.

Seven different players scored for McIntosh, which was led by the Ward brothers, DJ and Zack, who combined for five goals, and Jack Bornhofen, who scored three.

“I just think it was the best game we have ever played,” McIntosh coach Mike Muetzel said. “For three years, we have been an underdog. Now people are looking at us. To come out and play hard against a great, great Pope team, the No. 1-ranked team in the state, these guys have heart.”

Muetzel admitted that he didn’t show Pope his team’s full arsenal of schemes when the teams met last week; one offensive scheme that McIntosh deployed in the rematch that it didn’t deploy in the teams’ first meeting was the invert.

The invert is a scheme in which players with short sticks play up top in the offense and they go behind the net, where traditionally a player behind the net would be covered by a long-sticked defenseman. It allows short-sticked players to face short-sticked defenders, not long-sticked defensemen, a matchup advantage that McIntosh exploited, according to Meutzel.

“The coaches learned a lesson,” Meutzel said. “We had some things we didn’t want to show them last week, and I think we got a little complacent knowing that we didn’t put all our weapons out there. We didn’t show Pope the invert last week. It helped.”

McIntosh fell into an early 2-0 hole on back-to-back goals by Pope’s Andrew Russell in the first six minutes of the opening quarter.

The Chiefs answered with back-to-back goals of their own, one each by Zack Ward and Brennan Ott, to tie the match at 2 with 2:07 remaining in the first quarter.

Parker Frost scored on an unassisted goal less than a minute into the second quarter, putting Pope in front by one.

Then McIntosh’s explosive offensive attack responded with four goals in the quarter to take a 6-3 lead at halftime.

Daniel Christ scored the match-tying goal on a close-range shot, and Garrett Lee and Bornhofen scored on back-to-back wraparound shots.

DJ Ward caught a pass in the slot from Zack Ward and fired a shot into the net to cap the first half scoring.

The match could have been much closer in the first half, but McIntosh goalkeeper Andrew Huffman was exceptional in net, making numerous saves, many of which were of low, hard shots from point-blank range

McIntosh added two more goals in the third quarter — one each by Bornhofen and Zack Ward — to increase its lead to 9-3.

Pope opened the fourth quarter with two goals — one each by Eric Morris and Scott Dockery — to cut McIntosh’s lead to 9-5 and perhaps make the Chiefs say, “Oh, no, not again.”

There would be no last-second comeback by Pope in the rematch, though, as the Chiefs outscored Pope 3-0 the rest of the way to secure the victory.

DJ Ward scored two goals, and Cam Elward completed the scoring with a goal out front.

McIntosh will host St. Pius on Saturday at 2 p.m.