But even that did not work. Dartmouth won, 14-8.

After the game, Chelius and Colligan could be seen sitting on the bench, drenched in sweat from playing in the balmy April afternoon.

The co-captains looked at each other.

At this point, they knew the hope of making the tournament was over. The loss earlier to Yale opened up the coffin, and Dartmouth was the nail.

Might they have been thinking of when they were freshmen lacrosse players, facing Maryland in the NCCA Title game? Harvard held a two-goal lead with five minutes to go, but the Terrapins would tie to send the game into overtime and then win it all.

They were so young then. Oh, we'll be back. So resilient, and so naive.

"When people are saying to you that it's horrible to lose in the finals," Colligan would later say, "you don't really understand what that means."

Colligan and all of her roommates would never make it back to the finals.

So was the loss to Dartmouth it? Will the women's lacrosse team finish .500 next year, and do even worse the year after that? Will there be players two or three years from now yearning for the days when Harvard could get to within six goals of Dartmouth?

Duffy doesn't think so.

"It was kind of a wake-up call," the sophomore would later say, "We're going to work harder--if anything it will fire us up more."

Colligan and Chelius, while sitting on the bench, knew that felling.

They worked. They tried. They were fired up. But after the loss they knew that even if you have your best possible day, it may not be enough.

Might they have been hoping that the younger generation will realize better than they did that it must carpe diem and that NCAA Tournaments are precious and rare? Might they also have been hoping that Gudeman, Duffy and all of next year's recruits will use this wisdom to their advantage and reclaim the Ivy League Title for the lacrosse, soccer and field hockey teams?

Perhaps. A senior can only dream.