Quite a rivalry has formed between Yukon and Northwest Territories soccer teams.

Both likely wish, however, the stakes were higher.

Team Yukon's boys and girls soccer teams ended the Western Canada Summer Games in fifth place after each beat N.W.T. in the 5th/6th-place game.

"We're close in being able to hold the top teams, and then to be able to get that one goal,” said Jake Hanson, head coach for the boys' team and technical director for the Yukon Soccer Association.

"What will it take? Just continuing to raise our standard. We're getting closer. But we still need to continue to raise our standard.”

The end result for both Team Yukon's boys and girls squads was strangely similar.

The boys lost their opening match 6-0 to Manitoba before dropping their second group-stage match to powerhouse B.C. 2-0.

The girls lost 12-0 to Alberta in their first game before losing to Manitoba 6-0.

"There were no surprises,” girls' head coach John MacPhail said.

The boys took fifth with a 4-1 win over N.W.T. while the girls downed their territorial rivals 2-0.

Belgie Nunez-Zuniga sniped two goals for the boys, with the other goals coming from Kieran Halliday and Michael Wintemute.

For the girls, goals came from Samantha Burgess and Janelle Cousins', off a penalty shot.

"Our goal was to beat N.W.T. all along,” MacPhail said, adding that his team was shocked off the start against Alberta.

"I don't think they knew what to expect against Alberta, how good these girls actually were; bigger, stronger, faster, everything. So when we played Manitoba, we changed our set up – we basically put eight girls back – to keep it reasonable.”

Hanson said the dream for both the Yukon and N.W.T. is to climb out of playing for fifth place.

"It's going to take a bit of luck at this point,” Hanson said.

"It still seems so unlikely. But I think there's growing hope. On occasions, we're starting to see players and teams with that sort of glimmer of hope that there might be this possibility. But it's still quite a standard to try to reach to be able to do that.”