No matter the result, all that coaches can ask of their players is that they lay their hearts out on the field. At the end of the game, they want their players to have no regrets and to have given their full effort.
Duke left College Park, Md. Sunday with this exact feeling-but unfortunately for the Blue Devils, so did No. 1 Maryland.
Duke scored five goals, matching a season high against ACC opponents, but it wasn't enough to top the Terrapins, which advanced to the NCAA tournament's final four with an 8-5 win on their home turf. Duke bowed out before the national semifinals for the second consecutive year.
"To come out with a loss like that is pretty devastating," head coach Beth Bozman said. "Any time you score five goals, you should be in the winning column.... It's really unfortunate, as they capitalized on every mistake we had."
The Blue Devils (15-6) made some mistakes early on, and the Terrapins (20-2) took advantage of all of them, building up a seemingly insurmountable 5-0 edge.
At that point, only a gargantuan comeback effort could have put Duke back on the winning side. The team could have folded, yet in a time of adversity, the Blue Devils opted for the opposite approach.
Duke began to chip away before intermission, starting with a goal from senior Marian Dickinson in the last minute of the first half that created a small wave of momentum for Duke.
"We dug ourselves into a big hole, and it takes so much effort to come back from such a deficit like that," senior Laura Suchoski said. "We could have easily given up, but we put our hearts out on the line in the second half and had one of our best halves of the season."
Suchoski, the three-time All-American, led by example. In her team's valiant second-half comeback, the captain scored goals in the 38th and 55th minutes, even though the Terrapins managed to add two tallies in between Suchoski's scores and an additional one after. With the score 8-3 and less than seven minutes left in the game, Duke still did not give up.
Following Duke's captains, freshman Rhian Jones scored on a backhanded shot in the 67th minute. Dickinson, a co-captain and the team's leading scorer, posted a goal in the game's final seconds.
"The team played with unbelievable heart," Bozman said. "They worked, never gave up for a second and we even scored a goal as time expired.... The effort speaks to this team, their perseverance and their commitment to the program."
In the first round of the NCAA tournament Saturday, Duke earned its fifth national quarterfinals berth in six years by upsetting Connecticut 2-1.
Junior Lauren Miller scored the team's first goal early off a penalty corner in the ninth minute. After the Huskies tied the match at one in the 56th minute, Dickinson netted the go-ahead tip-in score off a shot from Suchoski, and the tally proved to be the game-winner.
And although Duke was disappointed in the result of its NCAA tournament performance, the Blue Devils were able to walk off the field with their heads high.
"Win or lose, at the end of the game, whether it's your senior season and the end of your career or you're just a freshman, you want to step off that field feeling pride," Suchoski said. "I would rather take a loss and step off that field with a lot of pride than win and step off the field without it.... That's what our team did today."
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