The stunned faces on the Duke sideline following the Blue Devils' 3-2 loss to UCLA in the NCAA quarterfinals captured the true agony of defeat.
Duke's season, highlighted by regular-season and ACC tournament championships, came to an abrupt end Sunday at Koskinen Stadium, when the Bruins' Sal Zizzo found the back of the net just 30 seconds into overtime.
That, however, is the nature of sports-and soccer, in particular. A great season and dreams of a national title-20 years after Duke's last soccer championship-can come to a screeching halt in an instant.
The loss to UCLA-the second straight year the Blue Devils' season ended on their home field-prevented Duke from reaching the College Cup for the second time in three seasons. If they had advanced, the Blue Devils could have potentially faced ACC foes Virginia and Wake Forest, teams Duke had beaten a combined three times this season.
"We were all pretty convinced that this was our year," senior Chris Loftus said. "We really thought we were going to make it to the final four at least, and once we got there, we were pretty convinced that if we put it all together, we were going to win the whole thing. In terms of my losses at Duke, this is probably the most frustrating one that I've had, mostly because I know the talent and the potential that we had to win it all."
The Blue Devils, however, won't let the year's disappointing end ruin what they achieved. Duke finished the year 18-4-1, winning both the ACC regular-season and tournament championships-becoming only the second team in ACC history to win back-to-back ACC tournaments.
Those accomplishments helped the Blue Devils garner the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament.
"Right now, we're not seeing [the season] as a success because everyone on this team wanted that national championship probably more than anything," Loftus said. "It's something we're disappointed in right now, but give it a couple of weeks, and we're going to realize we really had a great season, and it's nothing to be ashamed of at all."
The key to much of Duke's success was its suffocating defense, which allowed one goal or fewer in 17 consecutive contests before the loss to UCLA. The Blue Devils had recorded four straight shutouts going into Sunday's game with the Bruins.
"I said at the beginning of the year that I thought we had the best back four in the country, and that proved through up until the last game," junior goalkeeper Justin Papadakis said. "We were unlucky at the end, but the defense-the back four-really carried this team throughout the year, and they deserve a lot of credit for our success."
Despite a mid-season slump, the offense did its part as well. The trio of Mike Grella, Spencer Wadsworth and Michael Videira combined for 29 goals and 27 assists.
To Loftus and Papadakis, Duke's camaraderie off the field was just as important as its talent on it.
"This is easily the closest team I've been on in my entire life," Loftus said. "There isn't a single guy on the team that doesn't get along with everybody else on the team. The locker room-of all things, that's what I'm going to miss the most about being on the team at Duke-just coming in and just laughing. This was definitely a very close team and down the line, I'll still be best friends with all these guys for the rest of my life."
Loftus is one of six departing seniors on the Duke roster, along with Kyle Helton, Danny Miller, Ryan Pascioni, Chase Perfect and Scott Siegel. The Blue Devils, however, will return nine starters next season-including All-ACC first team members Grella and Videira-and hope to finish what they started this year.
"We achieved all our goals," head coach John Rennie said. "We don't set goals of winning this or winning that. We got better as a team. Individual players got better. Those are the two biggest things as a coach that you want to see."
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