The CCRI women’s soccer team earned a trip to nationals with a dynamic performance in the district championship. Once they got to nationals, the Lady Knights ran into a team that delivered the same kind of performance.

With some nerves mixed in, it was a bad recipe for CCRI.

Paradise Valley Community College of Arizona, the No. 6 seed, knocked off the third-seeded Lady Knights 1-0 last Thursday in the first round of the NJCAA Division I national championships, ending CCRI’s hopes for a title.

“I think the jitters may have gotten the best of us,” said head coach Dennis Grassini. “It was the first game and we were nervous. Sometimes you need a little luck and we didn’t get any. Things just didn’t seem to go our way. But we have to tip our hats to Paradise Valley. They played better today, kind of like how we played versus Monroe Community College to get here.”

The Lady Knights came into the tournament with just one loss and a top-five national ranking. They were also coming off their biggest win of the season, a 2-0 victory over Monroe in the district championship. Monroe had beaten CCRI in the regular season.

With their ticket punched, the Lady Knights headed for Tyler, Texas, home of the championships, and they quickly found themselves in a battle.

Paradise Valley, which came in with a 17-3 record, controlled the ball for much of the first half. The Lady Knights managed to hold off the Pumas to keep the game scoreless at halftime.

In the second half, CCRI’s Carla Cano made a big play to keep the Pumas off the board when she cleared a ball that was about to bounce into the net.

Soon after, CCRI got its best scoring chance of the day when Ashley Choiniere sent her flip throw-in to the box for Katy MacAndrew, who almost got a head on it. Instead, Paradise Valley keeper Naomi Salazar snatched it out of the air.

The game stayed scoreless for awhile longer, but with 25 minutes left in the half, Paradise Valley’s Holly Benson played a free kick into a crowd of players in the box. The ball eventually deflected off Amy Eyden and into the net.

CCRI couldn’t mount a comeback, and Paradise Valley came away with the hard-fought victory.

“We couldn’t seem to get in sync, and they were a very good team,” Grassini said. “We couldn’t catch a break on anything, but those things happen. It wasn’t our day.

The loss dropped the Lady Knights into the consolation round, where they went up against another team that had been upset in the first round. Polk State College of Winter Haven, Fla., was ranked No. 1 in the final regular-season poll but lost to Johnson County in the first round.

Polk came away with a win this time, beating CCRI 3-2 in double-overtime.

Playing a better brand of soccer than they had on Thursday, the Lady Knights fell behind 1-0 on a penalty kick. They responded quickly, though, getting goals from Alexis Smith and Steph Morse to take a 2-1 lead into halftime. Morse’s goal came off a throw-in by Choiniere. It found the net with five seconds left in the half.

“We were dominating from the start,” Grassini said. “They got the PK and that took the wind out of our sails a little bit, but we came back. The kids played their hearts out.”

After carrying the play for most of the second half, CCRI watched Polk tie the game with 17 minutes left.

“The second half, we were all over them, but we couldn’t put the ball in the net,” Grassini said.

The two teams eventually went to overtime and double-overtime before Ashley Palmer scored the game-winner with just 1:55 left in the second overtime.

The goal came off a corner kick – Polk’s first corner kick of the game.

“We had five or six corners and they had none until that one,” Grassini said. “The ball bounced around like a pinball, it found the wrong team and that was it.”

Though that made for a heartbreaking ending, Grassini was thrilled with the effort he saw in the consolation game.

“It was a great game,” Grassini said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t come out on top. Our young ladies played much better today. They beat Polk to almost every fifty-fifty ball and played with tremendous intensity for the entire 100-plus minutes of the game.”

The loss ended a special season for the Lady Knights, who ended up with a 17-3 record. The trip to nationals was their first since 2003. Several players could garner All-American honors. Freshman Katy MacAndrew was named to the all-tournament team at nationals.

CCRI will now bid farewell to a talented group of sophomores – Cano, Choiniere, Morse, Smith, Alyssa Giudici, Kaela Rose-Gentile, Brittany Saez, Courtney Shea, Brittany Viera and Courtney Viera.

“The toughest thing is saying goodbye to these sophomores,” Grassini said. “They were really a special group. Collectively, they’re probably the most talented group I’ve ever coached and definitely the nicest group I’ve ever coached. Seeing them leave is the hardest part, but we’re very proud of what they accomplished. Like I told the girls, 150-some odd teams were sitting at home this week. We were at nationals and I think we proved that we belonged.”