Click here to listen to highlights from the game*Its something that I hope few people will ever have to feel- a crippling utter sickness that consumes you.
When UNC scored the game-winning goal with 11.7 seconds remaining in the national championship on Nov. 22 2009. The specter consumed you- the devastation of that loss; the pure heartbreak; how everything that went so right and was suddenly so wrong? The fact that a horrible and cruel end would happen to good people…Those were just some of the thoughts as that last malicious shot hit the backboard to seal the 2009 Terp’s fate. I uttered the only words that I could muster at that very moment month’s prior, not this way, this can’t be happening. But it did.
As I returned to the scene of the crime all of those emotions consumed me just as they had been 10 months prior. They had festered over that time, the wounds still raw.
Just getting to the city of Winston Salem, seeing the skyline that had been our home- -away-from-home during last years final four just started to curdle my stomach and make me feel uneasy. By the time the field and stadium came into view, I wanted to hurl. A rush of emotions filled me: anger, sadness, what could have been, broken hearts and a ruined dream.
I went into the bleachers and sat in the front row, my eyes fixed on the right side of the field…Where that shot went in. Replaying it in my head over and over, seeing the band clad in that God-awful Carolina blue erupt in cheers. Hearing the roar of the Terp fans, who had plenty of reason to cheer throughout the game. But this was not meant to be. Seeing last year’s seniors crumpled to their knees, hands over their face wondering what the hell just happened, looking at the stunned disbelief, the numbness of the moment.
For two hours I wandered the stadium, even into the pressroom. I lived in the past and flashed back as if it were unfolding all over again and again and again. My throat again buried in my stomach….
Then as I returned to the front row of the bleachers I heard a ball crack into the backboard. On the same goal that IT happened, the same one that North Carolina had dealt the kill shot just 10 months prior. There was a young, new Terp. One who was not there on that November day- a freshman. It was an ode to bury the past and move forward. And in that moment, I got up, went up to the perch in the press box and felt a sense of renewal and rebirth.
You cant change the past, you can only control the future and ensure that the next trip to Wake Forest will lead to more hardware and set up a run for redemption.
That’s the beauty of sports. There is always next year, no matter how badly the previous ended and now its time for these Terps to turn the page and write some new chapters.
Jill Witmer was named the ACC play of the week for the first time in her young career. Against Boston College and UMass Witmer posted two goals and an assist.
by Brian Kapur
