Many of the Blue Devils lingered a little longer on the field the day after Thanksgiving, unable to comprehend that their season had come to an all-too-premature close.
"A lot of people weren't ready for it," senior co-captain Michael Videira said. "We didn't expect it to end quite so suddenly, especially for the seniors. We've had such a good run the past four years. I don't think any of us were really prepared for it to happen the way it did."
The sloppy field at Louisville-site of Duke's 1-0 loss in the first round of the NCAA tournament to the Cardinals-proved an apt setting for the conclusion of a season in which the Blue Devils (11-8-1) could never seem to get their footing.
A host of injuries to key players throughout the season prevented Duke from ever settling into a set rotation or rhythm. Offseason surgeries for Spencer Wadsworth and Zack Pope, along with a preseason injury to senior co-captain Tim Jepson, forced the Blue Devils to mix and match in the midfield and the back line.
As a result, Duke stumbled to a 3-2 start out of the gates, dropping 1-0 decisions to Villanova and West Virginia despite outplaying each team.
That was a common theme of the season for a Blue Devil squad that entered the year ranked fourth in the nation and poised to send head coach John Rennie into retirement with a national title. Duke frequently outshot its opponents but often failed to convert those chances.
"I thought we were better than almost every team we played, but for some reason or another, we didn't really get results," freshman midfielder Cole Grossman said. "You can be better than a team, you can dominate a team, you can do anything and you can still lose the game. That's what makes soccer appealing, but it can also be really heartbreaking, too."
The Blue Devils experienced that deflating side of the game a little too often in 2007. On the season, six of Duke's eight defeats came by a single goal, including its postseason losses to North Carolina and Louisville.
"The one thing that a lot of people overlook is in a lot of games, we were two inches away from a different outcome," forward Joshua Medcalf said. "It's easy to say this team fell short of our expectations. We may have in certain ways, but in this league, the difference between the top team and the bottom team is miniscule. It literally comes down to inches every game."
Medcalf compared the season-ending loss to one of the Blue Devils' best wins of the season-a double-overtime comeback victory at Virginia. In that game, the graduate student's header tied the game with under two minutes to play. In double-overtime, junior Mike Grella notched the game-winner, again with less than two minutes on the clock.
"The Virginia game, our season was practically over until somehow a ball hit my head and went in the goal, and the goalie is inches away from saving it. It wasn't a great shot. We got lucky," Medcalf said. "But that game is held up so much better than against Louisville, where it's the exact opposite side of it where those chances didn't go in for us. We got unlucky."
The win over the Cavaliers propelled Duke on a three-game winning streak and appeared to finally right the ship. But one more injury-this one to Videira-was the final turning point in a season packed with undulations.
"It was kind of an 'Oh no, here we go again,'" Rennie said. "It's just one thing after another where we ended up being kind of fragile in terms of having real confidence. We had won some games and then all of a sudden there's one of the guys we counted on [getting hurt]. It just was difficult to maintain any consistency."
Videira did the most he could on the choppy turf at Louisville, but the Blue Devils came up a goal short. And a coach and a senior class that had accomplished so much in their time at Duke also finished just shy of their final goal-ending their careers with a national championship.
"I feel very disappointed particularly for the seniors," Rennie said. "They deserved to have a great year, they earned it, and it just didn't happen for them."
The pain of that disappointment may be one more emotion to come in a year full of them.
"I don't think it still has hit a lot of people on the team," Videira said. "But eventually it's going to, and it's going to suck."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.