The Yukon's U-16 rep soccer team has finally claimed that elusive gold medal they've been searching for.

After two silver medals in B.C. tournaments this season, the Wild Things competed at the Slush Cup in Edmonton this past weekend, where they finished first in Tier 3 competition.

More than 270 teams took part in the Slush Cup, with players ranging in age from 10 to 18 years. There were five tiers in each age group, so games were running from 8:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. at four different soccer centres in the city.

The U-16 division didn't have a Tier 1, just Tiers 2-5.

While the local team played in Tier 3, head coach John MacPhail said the team was good enough to play up, they just didn't have enough players. The Wild Things had 10 players while other teams were playing with 15, so he thought it would be best to play in a slightly lower category.

'We only had four spares, so fatigue played a factor for sure. I had two defenders start, with one rotating in, and four midfielders, with two rotating in. By the final, they were all tired.'

The local squad also had to deal with some different rules in Edmonton, such as what happens when a player gets a penalty. Instead of getting a yellow card and giving up a free kick, the player actually sits in a penalty box for a few minutes, so the team is shorthanded.

'We spent a little bit of time in the penalty box,' admitted MacPhail.

Still, it didn't hurt them too bad in the end. There were six teams in the Tier 3 division and the Yukon played games against Calgary, Edmonton and Lake Shore.

They beat Lake Shore 3-1 in their first game and tied Calgary 4-4 in their second, which ended up being enough to make it to the final, where they faced Edmonton.

'We've got silver at two other tournaments and it was time (for gold),' said MacPhail. 'We talked about that in between halves.'

It was tied 2-2 at the half and it would remain that way until there was just a minute and 30 seconds remaining, when Yukon's Brenden Carey scored the winner. And while the players on the field and bench went crazy, they couldn't get too excited the final two minutes of the game were played in stop-time, so Edmonton had plenty of time to tie it up.

'The other team came down and they were buzzing in our end,' said MacPhail. 'So we were all kind of holding out breaths.'

The teams were allowed one timeout in the final half and MacPhail had used his with five minutes left, just to give the players time to breathe and get them settled down. So with no timeouts remaining, they had to rely on instincts and adrenaline for the final minute and a half they were ahead.

MacPhail said the Edmonton coach told him the Alberta team had never seen their style of play before and didn't know how to react to it. MacPhail calls it playing possum, where they keep the ball in their own end and pass it around as long as possible instead of running up with it. The goal is to frustrate the other team to no avail. And, said MacPhail, everyone bought into the system.

'Everybody played great, I don't really want to single anybody out,' he stated. 'We scored 10 goals and seven kids were a part of that, so nobody scored more than two goals.

'A couple guys got hurt, they were banged up in the final so a couple of other guys came in and they played great too. Jeff Hills was sick as a dog the whole weekend but he continued to play anyway.'

MacPhail added that goaltender Donny Richardson made a big difference this time around, as he wasn't on the other trips the team made this season.

'Brenden (Carey) played defence all weekend, then he came up (in the final) and played forward, and he scored the winning goal.'

MacPhail said the tournament was very physical, but fortunately six of the 10 Yukoners play men's league soccer, so they're used to getting rough.

'Everybody always underestimates the Yukon, because we're just a small club from nowhere. So we used that as motivation.

'We said, These guys are going to think we're good before we even start. Let's show them they're wrong.''

Although the Wild Things never went in expecting gold, MacPhail said he knew he had the right guys to win it all this time around.

'They're all pretty good soccer players and they've all been playing for a really long time. Once we played that first game and won, I think we knew gold was it.

'They knew they had the chance to get the gold.'