The Cooldown: The Thrill of Victory, Agony of Defeat

Sheer joy. Unbridled pain.

We’ve reached the point of the season where the emotions of sport get pushed to the outer limits of the scale. It’s win or go home time.

On Friday night, we saw that in Milwaukee as Marquette upset Denver 18-11 behind five goals from Wisconsin native Nolan Rappis to earn the final spot in the Big East tournament.

First-year head coach Jake Richard, a Marquette alum who bleeds blue and gold, lost to Michigan 14-1 in his season debut. Three straight Big East losses, including one-goal heartbreakers to Georgetown and Villanova, seemingly had the Golden Eagles missing the conference tourney and pondering what comes next in the offseason.

But on Friday, despite falling behind 3-0 early, Marquette pulled it all together with was a dominant performance. What did it mean? Pictures, or in this case video, speak louder than words.

POSTSEASON 🔜#WeAreMarquette pic.twitter.com/4OSYJB8LO1

— Marquette Lacrosse (@MarquetteMLax) April 26, 2025

And once you get to the conference tourney, Marquette has proven anything can happen. In 2016, Marquette stunned Denver in the first Big East championship game to go to the NCAA tournament for the first time ever. Richard was an All-American for that team.

The following year, Richard’s first as an assistant coach at Marquette, the Golden Eagles became the first No. 4 seed to win the Big East tourney and went to the NCAA tournament for the second time.

For Denver, the pain of losing out will only be magnified when the remaining Big East teams come to their home field, the pre-determined host of the conference tournament.

On Saturday, Duke didn’t necessarily need to win, but an unforgettable season for Virginia still held hope if the Cavaliers could magically string together a season-ending run. It would need to start with a regular season win over Duke, something Virginia has not done since April 17, 2004.

Unfortunately for the Cavaliers, the string hit 20 consecutive regular season losses to the Blue Devils as Duke’s Benn Johnston scored with 27 seconds left in overtime following a Virginia turnover near midfield to give his team a 10-9 victory. As Duke stormed the field, you could see the agony on the Virginia players that fell to the ground, wend to a knee and walked off in disbelief.

HEY GAME, BENN JOHNSTON CALLED ☎️😈

Shoutout Mac Christmas and Aidan Maguire for making the play 🙌

📺 ACC Network#GoDuke pic.twitter.com/wHISTCrpeb

— Duke Men's Lacrosse (@DukeMLAX) April 26, 2025

Virginia, which had trailed by as many as three goals in the first half, had a chance to win it in overtime, but Griffin Schutz tried to go five-hole on Duke goalie Patrick Jameison and the bounce shot seemingly hit Jameison in the rear end. It was the 14th and most important save of the game for the U.S. U20 training team member.

Duke moves on to next week’s ACC tournament and has likely wrapped up a NCAA tournament at-large bid no matter what happens in Charlotte. Virginia, at 6-8, is done and out of the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2017.

One team moving on. One team done. That’s sports.