Illini soccer’s magical run in the NCAA Tournament came to an end Saturday in Santa Clara, Calif.; the 16th-seeded Broncos defeated the Illini 2-0 in the quarterfinals, ending the Illini’s season.

The loss came a week after the Illini defeated Nebraska at home 2-1 in the Sweet Sixteen to advance to the Elite Eight for the first time in program history.

“I am proud of my team for taking this program somewhere it hasn’t been,” said head coach Janet Rayfield. “Santa Clara has a lot of experience and now we can say we have experience in the Elite Eight.”

The Broncos were one of the hottest teams in women’s soccer, recording their 11th straight victory against the Illini. The Broncos pulled off the greatest upset of the tournament, defeating top-seeded North Carolina 1-0 in overtime, which set up the Elite Eight match-up against the Illini.

In the game, Santa Clara continued where it left off. The Broncos possessed the ball most of the game and held the Illini to four shots.

“Santa Clara was the better team today, and we lost to a great team,” Rayfield said. “Today, Santa Clara played the kind of soccer we knew they could play. I am not sure if we played the kind of soccer that we played to get us here.”

Despite Santa Clara’s dominance, it was the Illini who had the first chance to score in the game.

In the 39th minute of the game, senior forward Tara Hurless found herself alone in front of the net after a Santa Clara miscue. She fired a shot from 10 yards out but Bronco goalkeeper Julie Ryder was there for the save.

“I hit it with the wrong part of my foot,” Hurless said. “She was coming out, so I tried to hit with the outside of my right. I mishit it and hit it right to her. I knew it was going to be saved from the beginning. She made a good save on it.”

Less than a minute later, Santa Clara struck. Bronco defender Micaela Esquivel took a 25-yard free kick that found Bronco midfielder Lesile Osbourne, who headed the ball over senior goalkeeper Leisha Alcia to give the Broncos the lead.

Santa Clara took their 1-0 lead into halftime and wasted no time building on it in the second half.

With the start of the second half, the Broncos attacked the Illini net and Bronco forward Bree Horvath nailed a shot from ten yards out that hooked the far left post and found the back of the Illini net. The goal occurred just 45 seconds into the final period, taking the heart right out of the Illini.

“It is something that takes the wind out of your sails,” Rayfield said. “We talked at halftime about how we had been down 1-0 against good teams. But that goal hurts. That goal definitely rattles a young team who hasn’t been in an environment like that. It makes it even more difficult to come out and play with confidence.”

The Illini were not able to possess the ball long enough to develop an offensive attack and the Broncos continued to fire shot after shot until the whistle sounded.

Rayfield thought the Illini did not give the same effort on the field they did against Nebraska the weekend before.

“Overall, the way we played the game, that’s the thing I will struggle with, us being able to play with confidence and intensity in this kind of environment,” Rayfield said. “We didn’t play, maybe, the way we expected to play. To beat a good team, we had to do everything we were capable of doing. Today, we just didn’t do that. We played a little bit timid. You can’t win a game against a great team with any sort of timidness at all.”

On Nov. 20, the Illini played in front of the largest home crowd in program history – 1,046 fans.

Illinois defeated Nebraska 2-1 to advance to the Elite Eight. It was sophomore defender Sarah Brown’s penalty kick that served as the game-winner – but the controversy was whether there was a penalty.

“I didn’t think it was a fair call at all,” said Nebraska head coach Tim Champion. “Nobody saw a penalty kick there.”

Sarah Brown received the penalty kick and executed. Brown was able to kick the ball to the far right of the goal past a diving Katie Wright, Nebraska’s goalkeeper.

“I took the penalty kick and I knew I could do it,” Brown said. “I’ve done it twice this year.”

Earlier in the game, the Illini drew first blood when junior midfielder Paula Faherty obtained possession of the ball off a corner kick and shot it past Wright from 15 yards out.

Nebraska answered back off a free kick. Utilizing their goalkeeper’s ability on free kicks, the Cornhuskers had Wright fire a free kick from 70 yards out that found an open Brooke Bredenberg, who had gotten behind the Illini defense, and the result was a tie game.

The game went back and forth with both teams trading opportunities to score, but for the most part the Illini maintained possession and kept the Cornhuskers from using their athleticism.

It was the Illini’s fighting attitude that prevailed.

“Our front-runners kept going at them,” Rayfield said. “That has been a hump for us to overcome, when you’re not scoring goals you tend to get frustrated because … it’s like a fruitless effort. The more you go at them, something is going to crack, but credit to them they fought in the box. We just had to keep at them and we showed that tonight by winning balls in the air.”