CARY, N.C. “”mdash; The wet, grass-stained ball skipped toward redshirt senior goalkeeper Ashley Thompson as the clock wound down.
One last time she bent over, ever so slowly scooped it up and sent it away.
This time the punt was a lazy, effortless one. It didn’t matter where it landed.
And as the ball sailed through the air, the players of the first-seeded UCLA women’s soccer team were not watching.
While the public address announcer counted down the final seconds of their season from 10 to one, a few Bruins started heading toward their sideline, their arms sagging at their sides, blank expressions on their faces.
UCLA (22-1-2) fell to North Carolina (24-1-2) in the national semifinal, 1-0, on a near-freezing Friday night in North Carolina.
There weren’t any tears at this juncture. Just heads tilted up toward the sky, looking for answers.
The Bruins came so close to a championship yet again. But they fell short, again.
Six straight times, to be exact.
“We wish we would have got one,” senior defender Erin Hardy said.
Hardy and the rest of the team spoke for 20 minutes after the loss.
They spoke after a team huddle, after fresh tears and after they had time to reflect on a perfect season that ended imperfectly.
They sluggishly took their seats, red in the face from both bitterly cold wind and tears.
“I thought it was an outstanding game,” coach Jill Ellis said in her opening statement. “I thought it was a game with two halves. … I’m just exceptionally proud of my team. I felt if we would have put two halves together as we played in the second half I think we would have had maybe a different result.
“I’m incredibly proud of the players. I thought it was an entertaining match and hopefully people were pleased with their value.”
Ellis nailed it from the beginning, and North Carolina coach Anson Dorrance seemed to agree.
“I want to congratulate UCLA,” he said. “I thought we played a good first half, but I thought they played a great second half. So we feel very fortunate to be sitting here as a 1-0 victor, but I’m thrilled.”
In the first half of the match, North Carolina clearly outplayed a UCLA team that looked nothing like the one that romped through the first four rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
Although there were few quality scoring chances, UNC was the clear aggressor, putting pressure on the ball at every moment.
And UNC converted the one quality scoring chance it did have.
With four minutes and 51 seconds to go in the half, UNC was again on the attack, and UNC freshman forward Brittani Bartok had the ball in the box among a crowd of Bruin jerseys. In slid Hardy in an attempt to dispossess her and clear the ball out of danger. Bartok spilled to the ground hard, and a penalty kick was issued for the foul.
Hardy seemed unconvinced that a call should have been made.
“I didn’t see a replay; they didn’t replay it on the big screen,” she said. “I need to see it. I didn’t think it was a (penalty kick), but I think it’s a hard (penalty kick) to call in the Final Four. I didn’t think I got contact with her feet.”
UNC senior midfielder Yael Averbuch stepped in to take the kick and sent a bullet to the lower right side of the net. UCLA’s Thompson guessed correctly and dove right, but the ball snuck just past her outstretched arms for the goal.
“I wasn’t nervous,” Thompson said. “I just stayed calm. She showed me which way she was going, and I was just unfortunate to not get there far enough to the left.”
According to Dorrance, Averbuch had been the leading proponent of taking penalty kicks in practice.
“We’ve practiced them a lot, so I was pretty confident and knew what I wanted to do beforehand,” Averbuch said. “I knew if I kept it low and hit it side panel like Anson always tells us, that no matter where the keeper went, it would have a good chance of going in.”
The goal gave the Tar Heels the 1-0 lead they would cling to for the rest of the game. Although it came on a penalty kick, the goal was a direct result of solid play and constant pressure.
UCLA was repeatedly forced to drop passes back behind the team, while UNC front-runners flew down the field applying pressure and pushing the ball backward deep into Bruin territory. Defenders often had to drop the ball back to Thompson, who would punt it away, only to have the same sequence repeated until North Carolina could mount an offensive attack.
The Bruins suffered another blow when, with 27:42 left in the first half, senior midfielder McCall Zerboni had to leave the game permanently after falling and spraining her ankle.
Zerboni is one of the team’s co-captains, and Ellis said losing her hurt the Bruins’ performance from there on out.
“McCall has been an emotional leader for us, and for her to go down that quickly ““ she’s such a very good technical player,” Ellis said. “She’s an excellent passer. So clearly trying against this team to keep the ball and keep possession was a big loss for us.”
As both coaches alluded to, however, things changed in the second half and they changed quickly.
“Overall, I think that maybe UCLA didn’t have the best first half,” Tar Heel junior defender Whitney Engen said. “That definitely wasn’t the best UCLA team we’ve seen. UCLA in the second half was very threatening. They came out on fire.”
Just 2:04 into the half, UCLA set up its best scoring chance of the evening with a beautiful sequence.
Junior forward Lauren Cheney brought the ball up the field on the right and dropped it in with a nice pass to junior forward Kara Lang. Lang beat her defender and found herself with space in the box to the left of the keeper at point-blank range. She fired from five feet out and was stoned by North Carolina goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris, who had just entered the game to start the half.
The Bruins created several more quality chances throughout the half, but none as good as the early opportunity and none that they were able to convert.
“It’s the difference in the game,” Ellis said of converting chances. “Ashlyn made a great save. She’s a great keeper. We always know in the game of soccer if you’re creating chances, you’re in the game. I’ve said that year after year.”
And although the Bruins had to fly back home Saturday to end yet another year without a championship trophy, even Hardy, a senior who has been through this four times, could crack a smile by the end of the evening.
Despite all the looks of anguish and confusion, when the Bruins left the field, not one of them hung their heads.
“I’m just so proud of our team,” Hardy said. “We love each other so much, and we believe in each other. I’m proud of the second half. It didn’t go our way, but we can hold our heads high. We have no regrets.”