It was quite a reversal of fates for the Grand Valley State University women’s soccer team Saturday as it fell to The College of St. Rose 2-1 in the NCAA National Championship match.

On the way to its first National Championship in 2009, GVSU scored a goal in the 83rd minute, upending St. Rose 3-2 in overtime in the national semifinals.

Saturday, the Lakers attempted to defeat the Golden Knights again, this time looking to seal up a third-consecutive national title. But the St. Rose players played comeback kids this time around by defeating the Lakers 2-1, giving the school its first-ever National Championship and, at the same time, handing GVSU its only loss in the 2011 season.

The Lakers finished the 2011 season with a record of 20-1-4, and the loss snaps a 42-game unbeaten run that dated back to September of 2010.

The team entered the final round of Saturday’s NCAA Division II Soccer Tournament coming off a 3-2 penalty kick shootout victory following a 1-1 draw with California State University-Chico in two halves of regulation and sudden-death overtime.

GVSU head coach Dave DiIanni said his team is remaining positive after executing its game plan and playing a hard fought game against the Golden Knights.

“I’m really happy with how we did today,” DiIanni said. “Obviously the result is not what we were hoping for, but we had good game plan on how we wanted to defend and attack St. Rose. We created a lot of opportunities — I really think the game was the result of us struggling for about eight minutes at the end of the first half and into the first 15 of the beginning of the second half. Unfortunately they scored two goals in that time, and with all our chances at the end of the game we just could not get that equalizer back.”

Senior defender Kayla Klosterman, who was named to the NCAA All-Tournament team alongside teammates Kayla Addison and Ashley Botts, said it was “disappointing” that the Lakers were not able to come away with a win on Saturday.

“We set our goals high at the beginning of the season, and one of our goals was to defend the National Championship,” she said. “That’s the game of soccer: things happen and you have to do the best you can. They played their hearts out, and I think we played our hearts out too, but someone had to come out on top, and, unfortunately, it wasn’t us today.”

Despite the Lakers’ efforts, St. Rose weathered an early attack from the Lakers, staving off multiple scoring opportunites to keep the GVSU lead at one going into halftime.

“We were jumping on them getting a lot of chances in the first 20 minutes in the first half,” said senior midfielder Erin Mruz, “Towards the end (of the first half), Ashley (Botts) scored a great goal putting us up 1-0 going into halftime.”

Botts converted a failed clearance from the Golden Knight defense into a rocket shot that found the net in the 33rd minute.

Her first-half goal for the Lakers was her 20th of the season.

Mruz would not say that her team came out “flat” to start the second half, but said they “didn’t quite match their energy right from the start” of the game.

St. Rose, however, did. The Golden Knights put the Lakers under immense pressure to begin the second half with sophomore forward Carmelina Puopolo scoring twice in the first 11 minutes.

GVSU battled back for the next 35 minutes with their best chance to equalize coming in the 85th minute when junior Maria Brown muscled through two defenders to fire a shot that nailed the crossbar and ricocheted to teammate Botts’ feet.Botts then turned to get the rebound, but her shot sailed over the crossbar.

Sophomore keeper Jessica Gerski made five saves for the Golden Knights and helped organize her defenders that kept the nation’s top-ranked team off the scoreboard for the final 58 minutes.

Mruz and Klosterman, as well as fellow seniors Megan Brown, Lindsey Marlow and Jessica Trost, close out their careers at GVSU with a combined 91.9 win percentage and a record 86-3-10.

“We’re ultimately sad because the season is over, our time with each other is over and the team is going to change,” DiIanni said. “All of our seniors are wonderful kids. These girls in particular have kept this team together, they’re not only good players, but they’re good people. They led this team to the finals and I’m happy to call them alumni.”

DiIanni said after the game that 2011 has been another “wonderful season.”

“Anytime you say you’re second in the nation you can be proud,” he said. “We’ll learn from the loss and use it as motivation. We’ll get better and be back next season looking to where we left off.

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