Just over two months ago, the Yukon Selects men's and women's soccer teams had very high hopes as they prepared for the national championships.

In their first year together, the women had returned from a tournament in Anchorage, where they looked great claiming the championship trophy. The men, who finished second in Anchorage, were full of young talent and looking to improve on their eighth-place ranking from last year's club nationals.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago and it was a somewhat different picture, at least as far as the men were concerned.

Four of their key players Ammon and Boris Hoefs, Paul Fraughton and Nick Locke were forced to withdraw from the tournament for school reasons. Two more were on the cusp of withdrawing, but decided at the last minute to go along.

The moves forced head coach Joe Zuccarini to do some juggling, bringing in some extra reserve players and switching some of his typically-offensive players to defence.

The women, meanwhile, maintained the same squad they had originally planned to compete with, but there was slight concern in the fact more than half of them were away at college, so they hadn't played a full game together in weeks.

Still, both Selects crews had drawn favourable pools for this year's nationals, which were held in Surrey, B.C., and they were confident heading in.

The men played their first game against Nova Scotia, losing 4-1, then followed that up with a 6-0 loss to Alberta.

'We actually had a great game against Alberta,' said Zuccarini, in an interview back home this morning. 'They're the number-two ranked team in Canada.

'Even though it was 6-0, we had those guys on the ropes for the first 30 minutes of the game.'

Their third contest was against P.E.I. and it was a tight affair. Despite a great defensive effort by the Yukoners, the crew from the Maritimes came away with a 1-0 win. The Selects ended the round-robin with a record of 0-3.

Saskatchewan would be their first playoff opponent.

'We started out pumped,' said Zuccarini. 'We wanted to win the game. We scored in the first 10 minutes.'

Saskatchewan tied it before the end of the first half, but the Yukon struck again early in the second half and then netted another to put the game away.

'Charlie (Hoeller, one of the Selects' goalies) made some good saves for us when we needed him to,' acknowledged Zuccarini. 'We were in control pretty much all game.

'It ended 3-1 but it could have been 4-1. We actually missed a penalty shot in the final minutes.'

With the victory, the Selects advanced to the ninth/tenth place game against Manitoba. Unfortunately, they didn't start out the way they had hoped and were behind the eight ball early, ending up on the wrong end of a 6-0 score.

'We didn't play very well,' stated Zuccarini. 'We didn't have the experience and that was the difference. All the way through the week, it was a major difference.'

Although they still finished ninth, the Selects returned home Monday with mixed emotions. On the one hand, Zuccarini was very impressed with the play of the youngest members on the roster.

'Personally, I think some of the young players got a lot of experience and a lot of playing time. It showed them how they had to play at that level. The level of soccer there was very high. Actually, this year, I thought it was higher than the year before.

'The young guys played as well as they could and we had some of the replacement players come off the bench and do well.'

On the other hand, Zuccarini feels like things could have been better, particularly if they had attended the championships with the original roster.

'Under the circumstances, I think we did as well as we possibly could. But if we had the roster we originally planned to go down there with, I think finishing in the top four was not a stretch for us this year.

'Against Nova Scotia, with guys like the Hoefs brothers, Paul (Fraughton) and Nick (Locke), I think we could have beat that team. And Nova Scotia and Alberta ended up in the final two.'

Instead, the Selects dropped down from last year's ranking and will now take some time off before deciding what to do next. The 2007 nationals are in Nova Scotia and the men aren't sure yet whether they'll be attending.

The women will also be taking some time off this fall, after a performance at nationals that head coach Dan Macdonald was fairly happy with.

'We competed,' said Macdonald. 'It was a steep learning curve for the ladies, because this was their first year at a national competition.

'Our first game (a 2-0 loss to P.E.I.) wasn't our best game.'

In their second matchup, the Selects took on Nova Scotia and fell 6-1 to the team from the Maritimes. Their next two games, against Newfoundland and New Brunswick, were a lot closer.

'We had a young team,' explained Macdonald. 'We had eight girls who were still considered youth players, under the age of 19, playing in a senior women's tournament. That's tough.

'The understanding of how the game has to be played wasn't quite there to start off with. But that improved as the tournament progressed and we played some very good soccer.'

They picked up a 1-1 tie against Newfoundland, finishing third in their pool in the round-robin, then loss to New Brunswick in their first playoff game.

Their final contest was against Newfoundland once again, for 11th place.

'It was 1-1 after halftime, but unfortunately, we put in two own-goals in the second half, so that kind of killed us,' said Macdonald.

The final score was 4-1 for Newfoundland and Yukon finished 12th.

'I'm pretty happy,' said the coach. 'I think we did pretty good for our first trip down to nationals.'

Macdonald said while he knew what to expect in Surrey, in terms of the calibre of play, he was surprised by some things.

'Preparation-wise ... we weren't as prepared to play as I thought we had been before. I had to make adjustments throughout the tournament I wasn't expecting to do.

'But that's all part of a learning curve, for the team and for myself as a coach.'