The North Island Secondary School girls soccer team was unable to duplicate last season's championship appearance, but still managed three victories and placed ninth in the Class A Girls Provincial Soccer Championships in Victoria last week.
After winning one of three games in pool play, NISS edged J.V. Humphries School of Kaslo 3-2 in a placement-round contest Friday evening, then blanked West Point Grey Academy of Vancouver 2-0 in the game for 9th-10th place.
"We were a very young team," coach Kathy Mitchell said. "Because of a conflict with grad, we had no grade 12s, and only four grade 11s on the team.
"Really, we did very well in consideration of that."
Port Hardy Secondary School also qualified for the tourney and placed 15th. The Whalers lost each of their pool games, but closed the tourney with a 4-0 shutout victory over Lake Cowichan.
"We finished the season with a win, which is nice," coach Sam McMunnigle said. "The scores did not reflect how well the girls played. They played very well, I thought."
The NISS girls dropped their first two pool games, 3-1 to Rossland and 7-0 to Immaculata before starting their three-game winning streak with a 5-1 victory over Fort St. James.
PHSS suffered shutout losses to Ashcroft and Southridge to start round-robin play, then finished strong with a 2-1 loss to J.V. Humphries and a 3-1 loss to Fort St. James before its shutout win.