Like an astronomer searching the sky for a star that never existed, they scoured the empty ground in search of an answer to what had happened, trodding slowly from the court, heads hung in unison. Like an old Burma Shave sign telling its story panel by panel on an empty country highway, their faces told the story in a slow one-by-one procession.
Faces red from four hours in the sun and eyes red from tears they wanted no one to see, the women's tennis team walked away no longer owners of an ACC win streak that numbered 116 and which might as well have been a million for all anyone knew.
Like unwitting pall bearers to the gasping streak, they had stood, Duke No. 1 seed Megan Miller and No. 5 Hillary Adams at one end, Wake Forest's Maren Haus and AnneMarie Milton at the other, watching court No. 1 with a quiet expectancy as Bea Bielek's serve jumped violently into Erica Biro's body, and caromed off a hastily drawn racquet, putting an impossible streak to an undeniable end.
In a four-hour blur of shrieks, yells, screams and grunts, 116 had become zero as smoothly as day turns to night.
In the numbers-crazed world of sports, the streak had exploded like a bull market into the ACC recordbooks during the '90s, skying upward for what seemed like a 12-year eternity.
But somewhere between novel, impressive and damn near unbelievable, the streak had become a burden, like a clunky family heirloom sitting ponderously in the corner, always too big for wherever it was put.
It had become a near unbearable gravity-its lone purpose preservation-and finally its weight simply crushed itself.
On a young team lacking the calming assuredness that Vanessa Webb had been able to bring to the lineup for four seasons, it simply became too much.
"The streak is bigger than the team, it's part of the tradition," said Kathy Sell, Duke's gritty leader. "A lot of people, me included, put extra pressure on ourselves.... It's a big mental pressure."
But as the sun dropped itself down below the Durham horizon, already forgetting a day Kathy Sell will never want to remember, all there was to do was tip the cap to Wake Forest and sit back in awe of a streak that no one has ever come close to before or may ever again.
Because in sports, all good things must come to an end.
Ali lost fights, Montana threw interceptions and even the Babe went down swinging, but none of them ever came close to winning 116 in a row.
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