HARTFORD, Conn. - As much as she could, senior guard Kelly Mazzante held on to everything a little bit longer last night.

The fist pump she held taut after making a tough lay up during a fleeting Lady Lions comeback. The way she still called for the ball even as the clock headed toward zero. It was all there; everything that would be expected from a senior and one of the all-time Penn State greats in her last game.

All, except the one thing she wanted most - a trip to the Final Four. There was no holding on to that. The No. 2 seed Connecticut players got their hands on it and grabbed it away from the Penn State women's basketball team.

It's a sad fact for Mazzante and fellow senior Jess Brungo, and both will have to live with it. They'll also have to walk away from their final game as collegiate basketball players knowing that it all ended, because they could not get it done at the offensive end.

The Lions inability to put the ball through the hoop consistently in their half court sets was staggering. The 21-13 score at half time in favor of UConn showed that. Penn State not being able to get into its transition game and some fortunate bounces for the Huskies certainly didn't help.

"Things were going [UConn's] way I the first half, but we missed shots," junior point guard Jess Strom said. "It was on us."

And at times the shots were actually there. But many other times they weren't. At the very least, it would be safe to say that UConn was able to get better shots.

A perfect example happened with just under seven minutes to go in the second half, right around the same time UConn erased any thoughts of a Penn State comeback.

With Penn State drawing as close as they ever would in the second half, UConn guard Diana Taurasi came off a screen, and a typically crisp Connecticut pass found the All-American alone on the wing. Given the final outcome, the result of the shot by the most clutch women's basketball players in the country ought to be obvious.

Penn State responded appropriately by putting the ball in the hand of their All-American, Kelly Mazzante, on the very next possession, with one main difference: Mazzante shot the three, like the she did all day, with a hand in her face.

Later, Taurasi got to smile, dance around the court with her teammates and cut down the nets, while Mazzante and her teammates left the court battered and bruised - and with out the ability to say, "We'll get it next time." The physical play took its toll.

"They blatantly hit me coming across the middle - that was there game plan," Mazzante said.

Added freshman center Reicina Russell: "This game was out of control physical."

Still, the Lions would hedge a bit. This is team that has said, "It's about us" the entire season, and they weren't about to say it was anything but themselves that cost them the game now.

"We had shots; we just didn't hit shots," junior guard Tanisha Wright said, putting her head down, tired and sniffling from cold she's been trying to fight off all week. "I didn't finish. I didn't hit shots."

While the Lions chose to look at themselves, they were forced to watch, briefly, as the celebration began for the Huskies. Even in this dream season for the Lions when there were many moments when they were the ones celebrating, they were on the wrong end of the celebration when it all ended. There will be things the players can hold on to always, but all of it - the championships, the Final Four - was not meant to be all theirs.

"We had an opportunity to take this program to a higher place," Wright said. "We had it in our grasp, and we let it slip."