Nine times they boarded the white vans from Rec Hall and traveled down Curtin Road to Jeffrey Field.
Nine times they walked off Jeffrey at the final whistle. Never did the opposition have more goals than they did.
The 10th time, though, lacked the magic of the previous nine, and the Penn State men's soccer team saw its season end at the hands of the Maryland Terrapins Sunday, 2-1, in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Maybe it was the postseason's habit of exploiting any team's fatal flaw. In the Nittany Lions' case, it was their penchant for failing to convert scoring opportunities that was their demise, as Maryland (14-5-2) turned five shots on goal into two scores and Penn State (12-8-2) could only manage the one goal out of their seven shots on goal.
"It's tough at this stage to put things into words," coach Barry Gorman said after the game. "I thought our guys played awfully well. I thought we had our chances...Credit to Maryland, they put their chances away, and that's the name of the game."
Ultimately, Maryland's talented and deep -- but young -- squad was able to do what nine other teams had failed to do on Jeffrey Field this season: get a winning result.
"This was a new experience for us, to play on the road," Maryland coach Sasho Cirovski said, adding it was the first time in 12 years the Terrapins played a true road game in the NCAA tournament. "That wasn't the hard part, the hard part was that we were playing a great Penn State team with two big-time forwards and a team that made it very difficult for us today."
With their final home record left to stand at 7-1-2, the Lions could only reflect afterward on their missed chances and the season that was. Penn State will lose just two starters, captain Jason Yeisley and midfielder Frank Costigliola, and will return four All-Big Ten selections, so another postseason run is likely in 2010, provided the team can stay healthy.
"It's extremely difficult," Drew Cost said afterwards. "Every time you step on the field you don't expect to lose, especially at home. NCAA tournament -- we were very confident. We came out and I thought we played very well with the exception of two lapses."
And while Penn State had managed to mostly steer clear of the injury bug in 2009, unlike past seasons, they were bit hard Sunday.
With regular left back Andy Parr out with the MCL sprain he suffered at the Big Ten tournament and his backup Patrick Krispin out with the flu, Gorman was forced to stretch his personnel and use freshman Brian Forgue in the spot.
The defense had to shuffle again late, as first Justin Lee and then Forgue went out of the game with injuries. While Lee was able to return from his cramps, Marco Ciarla had to come on to play for Forgue. The forced substitutions on defense were a far cry from the regular season, when the starting four and Krispin were the only defenders to regularly play.
Another key factor in the game was Maryland's ability to take Penn State's dynamic winger, Matheus Braga, out of the game in the second half. While the team's assist leader created havoc for the Terps in the first 45 minutes, he hardly saw the ball over the final 45 and was unable to create the opportunities the Nittany Lions' offense needed.
"He's a very skillful player, very slick, and he seems to generate a lot of opportunities for Jason [Yeisley] and Corey [Hertzog]," Cirovski said. "They love getting the ball out to him on that side and he's sort of the playmaking midfielder for them. When London [Woodberry] went out there I think we got better with it, but also we got a little bit more help from our right-sided midfielder, and we rotated that position in 15-minute intervals because of the energy it took to do that."
Certainly, Penn State was handed a tough draw from the selection committee in the form of Maryland. The defending national champions, the Terrapins posted another strong year in 2009, notching a fourth-place finish in the brutal Atlantic Coast Conference, Division I's strongest soccer conference. With Sunday's win, the Terps advanced to their eighth straight Sweet Sixteen and will play Harvard next Sunday for the right to play in the College Cup, soccer's Final Four.
Cirovski was effusive in his praise of the Nittany Lions, saying many in the college soccer community had thought Penn State was the class of the Big Ten in 2009. He said the game game down to his Terrapins executing their game plan.
"We knew that this was going to be a tough challenge," the coach said. "We knew that if we could contain Jason and Corey and minimize what Braga did out wide that we'd have a good chance to win this game. I thought we did a good job with that stuff."
