INUVIK
A short-handed East Three Secondary School senior boys soccer team couldn't be stopped from retaining its title at the Diavik Super Soccer Championships in Yellowknife over the weekend.

The East Three Secondary School Senior Eagles soccer team won the A division Diavik Super Soccer championship May 4 in Yellowknife for the second consecutive year. The team presented the banner to the school on May 6. Pictured are coach Matthew Miller, left, Paul Schab, Brad Jacobson, Matt Skinner, Jozef Semmler, coach Colin Pybus, Connor Campbell and Deeron Vittrewka. Travis Smith was absent. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo

The seven-member team won its second straight territorial championship on May 4 with a 3-0 win over Hay River.

"They are repeat champions in the single A division," co-coach Colin Pybus said. "We went down on Thursday and played four games."

There were only three teams in the division, he said, and the team split its games against Hay River in dramatic fashion in the round-robin. The East Three Eagles won 8-1 before losing 6-1, so there was no overconfidence in facing Hay River for the championship.

"So we didn't really know which team was going to show up for that final game," he said. "We went three and one in the round-robin, which got us a bye to the final game."

"Our key with this team was perseverance and dedication," Pybus said. "We went down with a smaller-than-regular team of seven players, and we had a flu bug that hit one of our guys, and we had injuries that a couple of guys battled through. I feel that dedication and perseverance was the key."

Pybus said he thinks it's the first time an Inuvik team has won back-to-back titles in soccer, and East Three is now two for two since it opened in 2012.

Jozef Semmler and Travis Smith were the stars on offence, even with an injury to Semmler, Pybus said, but he added it was a total team effort.

"He played with a hurt leg and everybody had pains," he said. "When you play that many games in three days, it takes its toll."

The team also lost its two goaltenders before the tournament started, and Matthew Skinner was pressed into service as an emergency replacement.

He said he's never played goal before, but credited the team's defence for protecting his inexperience.

"They helped me out a lot, and didn't let the other team get a lot of shots on net.

"It was a great bunch of guys and a great experience going down there," Skinner said. "We all worked hard to get that banner.

"I think people were expecting a lot out of us, and we know we were better than the other teams, so we knew if we didn't win it, we would have failed ourselves and it would have been kind of sad."

Bradley Jacobson said "it was a pretty good tournament, and a great round-robin."

"We got lucky to get that bye in the finals, and we didn't have any idea of what would happened in the finals, since they beat us big and we beat them big. It was pretty hard at halftime, when we were still tied."

He was one of the defenders on the team.

"So yeah, it felt pretty good to win in the finals, and I just want to congratulate all of my teammates for helping us win this. Everyone was pretty excited."

The team had only a small number of returning players, and it was Jacobson's first taste of the tournament.