Team Yukon had a tough day at the 2022 Niagara Canada Summer Games Monday, with both of the basketball and volleyball teams losing and Mara and Mathilde Roldan failing to finish in the mountain bike competition in very muddy conditions on the trail.

However, the day ended on an excellent note with the male soccer team defeating Nova Scotia 3-0.

Technical Director Sean Fleming said "the kids played really well. All credit to them. They really have adjusted and adapted to things here and it's playing in the heat and everything and it was a very good performance."

Temperature at game time was around 27 or 28º C plus high humidity with a little bit of rain.

Fleming said the boys had a positive start to the game.

"The first game of the tournament, I was a little worried about nerves ... we were playing the ball well, they weren't getting many chances at all ... they stuck to the game plan really well."

Zach Saplywy opened the scoring.

"He made a run down the left side ... he tried to cross it and it went in off of the Nova Scotia defender and in, but it was as a result of positive play by Zach that we got 1-nil up," said Fleming.

Nova Scotia had to get at least a tie or a win to finish the Preliminary Round in the top eight spots.

"I told our boys at half-time they're going to come out with a big push and they did ... they came out in the first 10-15 minutes. We had to really withstand some pressure. It was a good learning experience for us; maybe there's certain things we can do to be a little more composed in situations," related Fleming.

Following the Nova Scotia onslaught, Saplywy was at it again.

"We ended up coming down and again, Zach put in a good cross and Seba (Sebastian Insley) finished it off with a good finish," recalled Fleming.

"That put us up two and then we really settled down again. That kind of took the wind out of their sails.

"Ben Kishchuk came in and made a really positive run and he took his goal very well, finished it very nicely far-post and made it 3-0," Fleming added.

Team Yukon then had to face a little adversity.

"I don't know what the yellow card was. When we made a sub, I guess the player should have gone off on one side, didn't go off and ... and then a minute later Etty (Etnik Tarakaj) was shown a second yellow card ... so we had to play the last 12-15 minutes with a man down. We really didn't know what the second yellow was for, to be honest. We found out after it was something about wasting time, but a pretty harsh second yellow.

"We adjusted well. We played smart, played with a little game savvy and ended up getting a very good result and really I was very happy. Callum Weir had to make one good save near the very end of the game but really, beyond that, he wasn't overly busy and I think it was a great credit to the team in front of him."

With the win, Yukon sits in top spot in Pool B with 3 points. Alberta and Nova Scotia are tied with 1 point each after they played to a nil-nil draw in their first game.

The boys take on Alberta today at 1:30 Yukon time. That game is scheduled to be live-streamed on https://niagara2022games.ca.

In swimming Monday, in the 50 Metre Breaststroke, Oliver Cull finished in second in his heat in 37.99, but didn't advance to the final.

In the evening swimming events, Thomas Gishler finished second in the Male 200 Metre Butterfly Final in a time of 2:23.84 and finished 10th overall.

In the Female 200 Metre Butterfly, Melody Qui finished third in her heat in 2:59.98 and didn't advance to the finals.

In the Male 400 Metre IM, Oliver Cull finished fourth in his heat in 5:35.80, Reese Jackson finished fifth in his heat in 5:20.69 and Tuja Dreyer finished seventh in a time of 5:11.35. Dreyer finished fifth in the B Final in 5:03.79 and 13th overall.

The evening ended with the 4 x 100 Metre Medley Relay Mix. Team Yukon finished 10th overall with a time of 4:50.77.

Today's action for Team Yukon, other than the soccer showdown with Alberta, includes beach volleyball, wrestling, and swimming.