Over the past 12 months, the TRU WolfPack women's soccer team has won a Pacific Western Athletic Association title and a regular-season banner.

Now, with the conference championship to start today in Squamish, the WolfPack is feeling . . . nervous?

Really?

"I think it's a good thing," offered TRU head coach Tom McManus, "rather than (the players being) overconfident."

The WolfPack (10-2-2) will open the tournament today against the Langara Falcons. The host Quest Kermodes will play the UBC-Okanagan Heat in the other women's semifinal.

TRU finished first in the eight-team conference, while Langara (7-6-1) was fourth. The WolfPack won both meetings during the regular season, winning 3-1 and 4-1.

There's no question TRU is the pregame favourite - but it also has a lot of expectations. That is the reason for the pre-tournament nerves among the defending provincial champions.

"We're the champions from last year and (had) the best record in the regular season," McManus said. "Everyone is gunning for us."

The WolfPack men's soccer team, at this point anyway, doesn't have the expectations or the nerves heading into the provincial championship. TRU will play the Vancouver Island Mariners in a semifinal on Saturday.

After a slow start to the season, in which it went 2-3-1 over the first three weeks, the WolfPack was 5-1-2 in its last eight matches.

The lone loss was on the road against the Douglas Royals, who went 10-1-3 and finished first overall.

"Since our fourth week, when we played UBC-Okanagan . . . our players, especially the new ones, started playing our system and we've been better as a team since then," said TRU men's co-head coach Sean Wallace.

The WolfPack (7-4-3) finished third overall, with the Mariners (8-1-5) second. The teams tied 1-1 on Sunday at Hillside Stadium in the final game of the regular season.

And while Douglas was the best team during the 2012 regular season, the Mariners are the two-time defending provincial champions. They also won a Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association bronze medal in 2010 and gold in 2011.

"I think we're definitely the underdogs," Wallace said. "And they have a lot more experience, I think they have (six) fifth-year guys.

"I'm not saying they're going to overpower us, but it's going to be a good battle."

The men's final is scheduled for Sunday.

The women's final, meanwhile, will be held Saturday evening.

And, really, anything short of a berth in that final likely will be seen as a failure for the WolfPack women.

TRU was a good - not great - team during the 2011 regular season, but won three straight games during the conference championship tournament in Kelowna to win the title.

Now, the WolfPack is the cream of the crop, with the conference's best record and with two major award winners - McManus was coach of the year for the second straight season, while midfielder Alanna Bekkering was named player of the year.

"We had less expectations last year," McManus said. "We had some injuries to key players - Blair (MacKay) was missing and Alanna had a bit of an injury . . .

"We weren't expecting anything. It's not the same as this year."

mhunter@kamloopsnews.ca