Less than three weeks after her record-breaking DePaul team had a first-round loss in the NCAA tournament, Brianna Ryce’s 2014 soccer season ended in a heartbreaking national team defeat Tuesday night at Port of Spain, Trinidad.
As the Trinidad and Tobago newspaper Newsday headlined it: “AGONY.”
That is how the country felt after its Soca Warriors, with Rice starting on defense, failed to capture the final place in the 24-team field for the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada.
"A loss at any level is always difficult," Ryce said in an email Wednesday morning. “Furthermore, I believe once a team has sacrificed their time and invested so much in the pursuit of a goal, a loss is even more saddening. However, in the midst of defeat, there is always a positive."
One positive would be the emotional support the painfully underfunded T&T women had received.
Playing before an estimated 19,000 at a packed Hasely Crawford Stadium, T&T needed a win over underdog Ecuador after the teams had played a scoreless tie Nov. 8 at Quito in the opener of a home-and-home playoff.
T&T dominated the rematch but Ecuador won, 1-0, on a goal in second-half stoppage time. That kept T&T from becoming the first Caribbean island to qualify for the Women’s World Cup.
Rice, a DePaul junior from Atlanta, had spent the past two months dividing her time between the Blue Demons and the T&T national team, for which she could play because of her mother’s heritage.
She had played all but one minute in five matches, including two overtime matches, of October’s CONCACAF Women’s Championship, from which the top three finishers (USA, Costa Rica, Mexico) qualified for the World Cup and the fourth, T&T, earned the playoff spot. T&T could have avoided the playoff had it been able to hold a one-goal lead for the final 12 regulation minutes against Mexico.
"When she came back from that, Brianna was pretty fatigued and beat up," DePaul coach Erin Chastain said.
Rice saw a lot of action with DePaul early in its season but played rarely at the end because of her commitments to the T&T team.
Ryce skipped the first World Cup playoff match to catch up on schoolwork and remain with the Blue Demons for the NCAA tournament. Despite an unbeaten season and top ten ranking to that point, DePaul drew an opening-round match at Big Ten tournament champion Wisconsin and lost 2-0.
She took final exams early to rejoin her national team a week before the second playoff match.
"It was a tough ending for her," Chastain said. "She will be a leader for us next year."
The coach was referring to Ryce’s not playing in the NCAA tournament. But the words applied as well after Ryce went all 93 minutes Tuesday.
"It's hard for me to even accept, because as a competitor, I want to win on the day," Ryce wrote. "Yet, this is the reality: win or loss, I and my team (nation and college) have to be strong enough to accept the result."