They may have missed out on medalling, but the members of both Whitehorse Northern Novas Synchro teams have a great deal to be proud of after their final competition of the season.

The final meet of the season was the MASY Challenge, which featured a tough competitive field of swim clubs from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

The meet highlights for the Northern Novas included winning ribbons in both team events as well as a duet.

"I am very pleased on how they did," said Northern Novas coach Aura-Lea Harper. "It was a little nerve racking, but they did hold their own out there. You could tell it was not a struggle for them to keep up with the teams."

The Northern Novas are the only synchronized swim club in the Yukon.

Their season begins in September and the girls normally do intense training sessions, covering the basics in the sport up until February when they begin to work on their routines. Routines in the sport include team, duet and figures, which is a solo event.

However, this year the older group began working on their team, solo and duet routines in December, in preparation for a Calgary meet that was held earlier in February.

Unfortunately cold weather ended up delaying their flight into Calgary, which resulted in the team not being able to take part in the competition.

There are currently two Northern Nova teams in the Yukon.

The older group of girls compete in the Tier 3 category at swim meets, while the younger team is currently in Tier 1.

The Tier 3 Northern Novas have four members that participate in the three different categories at meets. During the season, the group practiced twice a week for two and a half hours. They also met again on Sunday for a three-hour practice session.

The Tier 1 group is made up of three girls, who compete as a team as well as in figures.

This is the second year the Tier 3 group has been together and right from the start of the season they began to show signs of progress with the girls wanting to branch out and attempt new events.

Last season the team had only one duet, but currently the Northern Novas have two duets and four soloists, in addition to their team event.

The Northern Novas finalized both their figures and two duet routines, but it took the group longer to perfect their overall team performance, which wasn't completed until a day before they attended their opening meet of the season, which was in April.

At competitions, the judging criteria are evaluated in two main areas. The first is technical, which involves a mark based on the execution of the overall routine.

The second evaluation is artistic, which is based on things such as appearance and facial expression.

The team has had a great season this year. Among the highlights involved them moving up to the Tier 3 category as a result of the clubs first meet, the B.C. Sectionals.

At the competition, the Novas won a total of five medals, which included two gold medals in both figures and duet.

The Northern Novas also won two silver medals in both the team and duet events and medalled once again in figures, winning a bronze.

Other season highlights came in May when Northern Novas Taylor Hanna and Simone Kitchen won a silver medal in the Tier 3 duet category at the Jean Peters Meet, which was held in B.C. Hanna and Kitchen were the only two girls from the club to attend the Jean Peters competition.

The MASY meet was held over the course of three days in Regina.

At the meet, the top three finishers in the duet, team and figures categories for each Tier were awarded medals.

Ribbons were also given out to the eight highest scores in the three categories.

Competing for the first time as a team in the Tier 3 category, the Northern Novas swam to a solid fifth place.

The team scored a 55.188 in the figures category and a 56.667 in the routine evaluation to finish with a final score of 56.427.

The Tier 3 Northern Novas missed out on finishing in the top three by just over one point.

The best score in the Tier 3 team event came from the Calgary Aquabelles, who finished with a final score of 61.188.

The ribbons weren't just limited to the team challenge for the Tier 3 group, as Hanna and Kitchen finished in eighth place with an overall score of 56.792.

Also in the duet category, Northern Nova's Olivia Duncan and Katie Link finished in 11th place with a final score of 55.646.

Once again, the Calgary Aquabelles secured top spot with a score of 61.021.

Link had the best Northern Novas showing in the Tier 3 figures event, coming in 17th place with an outstanding score of 56.750. Altogether there was 39 competitors in the Tier 3 figures event.

Other Tier 3 Northern Nova results included Kitchen finishing in the 28th spot, while Hanna wasn't too far behind her, placing 31st. Duncan also performed very well coming in in 34th.

The Northern Nova's added to their ribbon haul in the Tier 1 team event. The Yukon trio finished in seventh out of 10 teams. They scored a 52.223 in figures and 48.333 for the routine to finish with an overall score of 50.278.

What makes the Northern Nova's seventh place finish even more impressive was the fact that this was the team's first outside competition in the sport.

The three Tier 1 Northern Nova's also did incredibly well in figures as well. The top Yukon finisher was Sophia Topper, who placed 13th with a score of 53.915.

Topper's score was less than two points behind the first place finisher in the category.

Jane Robinson-Boivin was the next best Northern Novas's swimmer finishing in 35th place with a score of 51.835. Yukoner Ashtyn Gibbs placed 50th, scoring 50.918. In total there was 74 competitors in the Tier 1 figures category.

Harper said all the MASY Challenge was a successful meet for the club.

"It was definitely a good experience for the girls," she said.

"The three that were brand new to the meet it was really good for them. Their nerves were up and down, so that was good for them to realize how to control them. They are interested in coming back, so that was another goal of mine to keep them in the sport."

She said the girls will continue to train over the summer and among their future goals is to move up to Tier 4 for the upcoming season.

"I am pretty confident in at least the four moving up," Harper said. "I think I am going to leave the three in Tier 1 again, just to get them used to it, but it all depends on what happens over the summer."