CARY, N.C. -- Raquel Rodriguez will be forever in the record book -- and long remembered in central Pennsylvania -- as the player whose goal won Penn State its first national championship in women's soccer.
But to simply call it a national championship hardly does justice to the story of a real-life "Rocky."
This country offers the best of what women's soccer is at the moment, from hundreds of thousands who swarmed across the border to watch the U.S. national team win the World Cup in Canada this past summer to the more than 20,000 people who showed up in Cary this weekend to watch the culmination of a college season in which tens of thousands of women compete, train and coach with a level of support beyond what is available to all but a select few in all but a handful of countries around the globe.
It is a big deal to be the best college program in this country, one of only 11 schools to win an NCAA Division I title.
But Rodriguez represents the best of what the sport can be in the future, and that makes what unfolded Sunday bigger than a national championship.
Six months after she scored Costa Rica's first goal in the Women's World Cup, and four years after she took a leap of faith on a place she had never visited and an experience she knew little about, Rodriguez scored the only goal in No. 1 Penn State's 1-0 win against No. 3 Duke.
"She inspires me," Penn State coach Erica Walsh said of the senior. "Inspires me to do things, inspires all of us to do things that maybe we're a little bit scared to do. [Rodriguez] packed her bags and moved to another country, moved to a small town, didn't know where she was going or what she was doing. But something inside of her told her it was the right thing, and I thank God that she did because she's been a blessing in all of our lives."
Rodriguez was voted the event's most outstanding offensive player. If not for a prohibition on voting for the same player, she could have been the most outstanding defensive player.
In a game short on quality scoring chances for other teams, Penn State appeared to be falling victim to the same fate that befell Florida State in its semifinal against Duke, and Stanford in a quarterfinal before that. Possession produced little reward and long passes and long shots signaled some frustration at just how effectively the Blue Devils closed down meaningful space. With more of the ball itself than it had against Florida State, Duke seemed just as likely to score.
Then, after Rodriguez intercepted a pass near midfield in the 72nd minute, the ball found its way to Penn State senior co-captain Mallory Weber on the far side of the field. Weber charged forward. Halted near the corner of the 18-yard box, a familiar sound reached her ears.
"I heard Rocky screaming in the middle," Weber said. "And when Rocky wants the ball, you try and find a way to get it to her."
Rodriguez settled the ball with a deft first touch, took another touch to clear it from her feet as she opened her body and drove it left-footed into the goal.
"She definitely didn't have a lot of chances," Duke goalkeeper and most outstanding defensive player E.J. Proctor said. "But she's good at capitalizing on the few chances that she does have."
That goal sequence could have been removed entirely from the game, and Rodriguez still may have been the most influential player on the field (albeit in a game that might still be going on if not for her score). Sometimes sports put Hollywood to shame, but her presence was unmistakable, even more so that she also scored the winner.
"I thought against us, and also watching her on tape, she has elevated her game since we saw them in the second week of the season and is playing at a very, very high level," Duke coach Robbie Church said. "Her movement, it's just very hard to be able to track and locate. She's smart, she knows where she can move, right or left, to get balls. You feel like you're screening her, she's not going to get a ball, but she can move and get a ball. ... She has a great feel for the game. You can see that.
"I thought she was as effective against us as any of the players we've seen, and we've seen a lot of really great players."
Rodriguez, by contrast, had no frame of reference for the challenge she took on four years ago. When she left home in Costa Rica, she had seen the Penn State campus only in the videos Walsh herself put together.
A leap of faith, indeed.
"On the plane, I just didn't know what to expect," Rodriguez said of that initial trip. "I was crying. I was reading letters people gave me from home. I was terrified. I was crying because it was the first time I was leaving my house. I'm super close to my family. Going away physically, it implies also the emotional independence. And that's what I was experiencing, so I was going through all sorts of emotions. But I knew that I wanted to come.
"I knew it was going to be hard, but it was going to be worth it. And it was."
Her family wasn't able to attend the games in Cary, but they watched at home in Costa Rica on a laptop hooked up to a television. But more than once over the weekend, Rodriguez referenced the surrogate family she had in this country, her coaches and teammates, certainly, but also the parents who made sure she had snacks, sheets and, for someone unfamiliar with State College winters, a warm coat. She was never a mercenary brought in to win soccer games. She was part of that family.
"People not only told me they were family, but they showed it with actions," Rodriguez said. "That gave my parents a lot of peace, to know that there were people -- whether it was coaches, teammates or even my teammates' families -- they were so attentive to me. Everything started there."
It would bother Rodriguez no end to be singled out in a retelling of Sunday's game and the season's championship. In neither instance did she act alone or carry a team on her shoulders. She was one part of many, albeit a world-class part, but the ball only found her foot because of the run Weber made, one of who knows how many thousand from the tireless senior winger.
The goal, in turn, only mattered as much as it did because of a team-wide defensive commitment that kept opponents off the scoreboard for the final eight games of the season. It mattered because Elizabeth Ball and Kaleigh Riehl played beyond their years in the middle of the back line, Frannie Crouse and Megan Schafer ran relentlessly, Emily Ogle played so well alongside Rodriguez, Nickolette Driesse fit in so well as a transfer, and a dozen other reasons.
Penn State won the championship, but Rodriguez won the day.
"I also understand that as a women's soccer player from Costa Rica, there's a certain responsibility," Rodriguez said. "And I hope that with this, and just the opportunity to speak with the media, to just keep the game growing. And I know that it's still growing in Costa Rica. I think there's a lot of talent, but there's not much awareness. So I really hope to be that advocate and to contribute to change at home and just in general with women's soccer."
This has been a year to celebrate women's soccer in this country. Sunday was no different. It just happened to be a day to share the joy with Costa Rica.
"I would never imagine it would be this cool," Rodriguez said.