SHAFFER: For Terps, a shot gone awry

Exactly a year ago Saturday, in the last byte of recorded history from the Terrapin men's soccer team's frantic and unforgettable 2009 season, Sasho Cirovski sat in a cramped Charlottesville, Va., media room and ended a press conference with a tersely worded statement whose brevity was more surprising than its boldness.

"This game will sit with me," said the typically garrulous coach after a season-ending 3-0 loss to Virginia, "until we win the next championship."

The title-or-bust proclamation came as no surprise to anyone who knows the man. A prerequisite for any successful season, Cirovski said last year, is a full step forward. Just how allergic is he to failure? That statement came after his team had won the 2008 national championship, its second in four years.

The expression on Cirovski's face after his second-seeded Terps had played for the final time this year was even more pained Saturday. Minutes after an enthralling afternoon of soccer theater had yielded a 3-2 loss to No. 10 seed Michigan, Cirovski struggled to grapple with the end of a season that seemed destined for the College Cup, if not another championship.

"As we all know, this can be a very cruel game. Every once in a while, the game reminds us of how cruel it really is," an emotional Cirovski explained. "But we'll bounce back. We've got a lot of players who will take this hurt and move forward."

The key question for this Terp team now becomes who will move onward. Of the 11 starters who took the field for the final time Saturday, as many as eight could be elsewhere next September.

Seniors Billy Cortes, Jason Herrick, Doug Rodkey and Greg Young won't be returning.

Junior goalkeeper and prized U.S. Soccer prospect Zac MacMath, who couldn't have picked a worse possible time to go without one of his highlight-reel saves Saturday, has already indicated he will enter the professional ranks.

Junior midfielder Matt Kassel and junior forward Casey Townsend certainly couldn't be accused of making bad decisions if either were to enter the MLS SuperDraft later this month. And sophomore defender Ethan White, a Kensington native and product of the D.C. United youth academy, could make a healthy living from home should he choose to chase a paycheck.

Cirovski said Saturday that "it won't be long until we're back in the College Cup." Given the future Hall of Famer's credentials, it makes sense to think that the Terps' next trip to college soccer's final weekend will come sooner rather than later.

But it was this year, not next year or the year after, that was supposed to be the next big one for what is arguably the game's biggest program. The team was healthy. It was scoring goals. It wasn't allowing many.

Then Michigan midfielder Fabio Pereira scored his first career goal in the second sudden-death overtime, and the dream of a fourth national championship frame for Ludwig Field's final corner was over.

"We did everything but put the ball in the back of the net," Cirovski said. "Good fortune was on their side today. To get to the promised land, you need some luck, and today, it was not on our side."

Maybe that's true. To have nearly three dozen shots and score just twice as the Terps did Saturday is unlucky at best and doomed at worst.

But again, it's likely the results outside the box score — like seeing every top-seeded team in the NCAA Tournament but his own advance to Santa Barbara, Calif., this week — that will eat at Cirovski the most.

"There's an expectation every season at Maryland that we're going to be in the College Cup," Cirovski said. "It's the honor and reputation we've built up."

shaffer@umdbk.com