After arguably the greatest season is school history, the Elon University men’s soccer team fell 3-0 to Coastal Carolina University, ending their season and leaving many to ask where a performance like that had come from.

The Phoenix, after all, w

on double-digit games this season, captured both the regular season Southern Conference title and postseason tournament championship, and had made their second straight appearance in the NCAA tournament.

The Phoenix had the leading goal-scorer in the nation in forward Chris Thomas, who was named the SoCon Player of the Year, and head coach Darren Powell, who was named the Coach of the Year.

And yet, with as much talent as the Phoenix had, their season ended with a resounding thud Thursday night in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

The Phoenix started fast, just as Powell wanted them to, but couldn’t find the back of the net. They hit the inside of the post twice in the first half, and they applied heavy pressure on Chanticleers junior goalkeeper Mark Petrus, but couldn’t find the back of the net.

“We hit two great shots that hit the inside of the post and didn’t go in,” Powell said. “Goals are going to change games and we could’ve found ourselves up two-nill. (The team) did everything in their capabilities to try and win the game, it just wasn’t meant to be.”

Coastal junior midfielder Pedro Ribeiro opened the scoring in the 41st minute, the first of his two goals on the evening.

“It’s the game of soccer, it’s going to be back and forth, you’re going to have momentum swings,” Powell said. “They scored right at the end of the half. We’ve been there before. We just had to make sure in the second half we came out and tried to get that goal back. We weren’t able to do that and then we were chasing the game when they went up two-nill.”

The Chanticleers scored their second goal in the 58th minute, when Ribeiro scored his second goal of the game on a shot from outside the box.

Latigue believes Coastal’s two second half goals was the result of the Phoenix’s aggressive play.

“Whenever the game is closing down and time is ticking you have to put more bodies forward in order to score,” Latigue said. “You do sacrifice some more players in the back who play defense, but that’s a decision we had to make. Unfortunately, we couldn’t capitalize, couldn’t score. That’s the way it happens sometimes.”

The Phoenix then conceded a third goal in the 69th minute on a junior forward Matt Risher breakaway that caught Elon with most of it’s team forward, trying to score a goal of there own.

“We knew if you don’t win, you don’t advance. Your season is over,” Powell said. “Bottom line for us (was), ‘how are we going to get two goals back?’ So, we were going to do everything in our capabilities to get those two goals back to win back our season.”

The loss was a disappointing way to end a fantastic season for the Phoenix; one Latigue knows will go down as one of the most successful in program history.

“Looking back, since freshman year, the program, the team, it’s always been going forward,” Latigue said. “The history that’s been created since (the senior class has) been here, I’ll remember that always. Everyone’s played their part to help this program to drive forward and that’s something I’ll always remember.”

Powell knows how special this season has been.

“When you look back, you see we got the most wins in the program’s history, we’ve got two trophies,” Powell said. “These guys have a lot, a lot to be very proud of. We got back to the NCAA’s, back to back (NCAA tournament appearances). There’s so much these guys should be proud of. We were No. 16 in the country. These guys have achieved an awful lot this year and I know they’re still hungry for more.”