No city has hosted the NCAA Women's College Cup more often than Cary, North Carolina, where the college soccer season will come to a close this week for a record eighth time.
What better place to find four teams at the intersection of history?
For the first time since 2011, all four No. 1 seeds advanced to the semifinals. While this year's NCAA tournament proved unkind to Cinderella, it left four teams chasing legacies.
North Carolina, which was absent the last three times the College Cup came to nearby Sahlen's Stadium, is back. And after an unbeaten ACC season, the Tar Heels would like to win a 22nd NCAA title and prove they haven't abdicated their throne.
Yet it's Stanford that currently reigns over college soccer. The Cardinal were national champions a season ago and are the No. 1 overall seed this season. The Cardinal own the all-time longest unbeaten streak of any program other than North Carolina (which owns the four longest streaks). To continue that and become the first school other than you-know-who to win back-to-back titles, in a day and age with so much competition, would cement the transfer of power to Palo Alto.
Florida State, meanwhile, has an opportunity to emerge from the shadows cast in conference by North Carolina and nationally by Stanford. No program has been to the College Cup more often since 2000 than the Seminoles, who could become just the sixth program to win multiple NCAA women's soccer championships -- USC and Stanford joined that club the past two seasons.
Nor is Georgetown left out of this conversation. Making their second appearance in the past three seasons, the Hoyas are writing history for the Big East with every win. Once the home of national powers that moved elsewhere, the reconstituted Big East was supposed to fade into soccer irrelevance without its cornerstones. Instead, Georgetown has reached the College Cup more times since the league broke apart than Notre Dame, UConn and West Virginia combined.
As the action shifts to Cary, it's worth looking back at how these teams survived the quarterfinals and what that reveals about the week ahead in the semifinals and final.
Stanford vs. Florida State, Friday, 7:30 ET, ESPNU
Stanford getting the band back together: There may be no more succinct summation of Stanford's place in college soccer at the moment than Tennessee coach Brian Pensky's halftime interview during Friday's quarterfinal between the Vols and Cardinal.
With Tennessee trailing by a goal, and fortunate it wasn't a bigger margin, Pensky said his team needed to play with more confidence. He then conceded why that is so difficult for Stanford's opponents
"There's a reason why they haven't lost 44 games in a row," Pensky told the Pac-12 Network. "They're fantastic. They're fantastic in possession. They're dangerous going forward. They defend well. They do everything well."
At their best, in other words, they're better than everybody else.
Stanford went on to win 2-0 to extend its unbeaten streak to 45 games (43-0-2), the fifth longest in NCAA history and longest by a team other than North Carolina. Tennessee never capitulated, and a missed second-half penalty kick could have made for a more dramatic finish if converted, but the Cardinal dominated play in a way that belied a game between No. 1 and No. 2 seeds.
More so than in the first three rounds, especially relative to the level of opposition, Stanford looked like a team picking up steam. It's no coincidence that the Cardinal also fielded its most complete lineup in weeks. Tegan McGrady and Madison Haley both returned from injury as reserves.
Sophia Smith, arguably the best freshman in the country, won't be back this season. Neither will Tierna Davidson, arguably the best player in the country and likewise felled by a lower leg injury. But the quarterfinal was just the fifth time this season that Haley, McGrady, Jaye Boissiere, Catarina Macario and Michelle Xiao were on the field in the same game (a win against North Carolina was the only time those five, plus Davidson and Smith, all shared the field).
Macario controlled play in the attacking third, while Boissiere and Xiao had almost free rein in the midfield. Haley and McGrady added a second wave of forward momentum off the bench (although that silver lining came with some tarnish because Haley didn't play in the second half).
A season ago, eight players appeared in all 25 games for Stanford. Only two played in the first 23 games this season. The question all season has been: Can some give all and can others give something? Boissiere, Macario and Xiao were healthy enough to give their all in the quarterfinal; Haley and McGrady were healthy enough to give something.
Florida State's latest international connection: An excellent alumni lineup could be assembled solely from the domestically sourced players who transformed Florida State into a college soccer powerhouse over the past 15 years. But it's also true that Florida State's global recruiting is the biggest reason that the UConn women's basketball juggernaut is the only basketball, soccer, softball or volleyball program that has reached the semifinals more often since 2000.
Without those players, including Hermann Trophy winners and finalists Dagny Brynjarsdottir, Sanna Talonen and Mami Yamaguchi, Florida State would likely still have reached a few College Cups. With them, the Seminoles are making their 10th appearance since 2003 and ninth under Mark Krikorian, the coach with the international connections and global blueprint.
That was most obviously the story line on the lone goal in a 1-0 win against Penn State this past Friday. Freshman Yujie Zhao, who missed the start of the season while competing for China in the Under-20 Women's World Cup, played a ball back to Deyna Castellanos 20 yards out. The Venezuelan international, who scuffed a similar attempt in the first half, drove her shot with her weaker left foot. Even as Castellanos' goal-scoring rate dropped this season, Zhao's arrival made the Seminoles better for having two players who can create goals out of nothing.
But no less important against Penn State and throughout the tournament was the presence of Natalia Kuikka. The cornerstone of a back line that includes two sophomores and a freshman -- with a freshman holding midfielder and a backup goalkeeper ahead and behind -- Kuikka takes second to no one, even Stanford's Alana Cook, as the best center back in Cary.
Georgetown vs. North Carolina, Friday, 5 ET, ESPNU
Georgetown's missing piece: It's safe to say Stanford wouldn't have won the title a season ago without Kyra Carusa, whose goal in the national championship game was her 15th of the year.
She may be the reason the Cardinal don't repeat this season.
A graduate transfer now in her lone season at Georgetown, Carusa heads to the College Cup with a personal 46-game unbeaten streak -- one more than her former school's active streak. As that kind of success suggests, if there is a short list of names to know to understand the week ahead, she's on it.
Fresh off a 3-0 win against No. 2 Baylor, Georgetown enters the College Cup with the stingiest defensive numbers of any of the participants: nine goals allowed in more than 2,300 minutes. It has a solid back line, experienced goalkeeper and defensive discipline -- all that good stuff. But against both Baylor and Duke a round earlier, Georgetown defended best by keeping the ball. A team that outshot opponents by roughly a two-to-one ratio entering the Sweet 16 outshot the Blue Devils and Bears by a combined 43-11 and dominated possession to match.
The Hoyas that reached the College Cup in 2016 won a quarterfinal against an unseeded team. The current Hoyas, after a shaky first hour in the first round against CCSU, asserted its will against the best opponents they could have faced in the next three rounds.
That isn't all Carusa's doing, but on a muddy, bare field that had obvious footing issues in the rain on Saturday, she again showed how important she is to tying the whole ensemble together. No matter the conditions, the Hoyas had the reassuring presence of a target who plays bigger than her 5-foot-7 height. Equally good holding the ball with her back to goal while play develops around her or making her own runs into space, she is a complete forward for reasons well beyond the goal she scored with her head off a set piece against Baylor.
None of it would work as well without running mates on either side like Paula Germino-Watnick and Caitlin Farrell or Grace Nguyen's midfield passing -- or that defensive solidity behind it all. But none of those pieces would work as well without college soccer's most valuable addition.
All hands on deck for Tar Heels: Safety in numbers might as well be North Carolina's motto.
There is historical safety in 21 NCAA championships (and another AIAW title) and now 27 trips to the College Cup after the Tar Heels eliminated UCLA in a quarterfinal penalty shootout.
There is also tactical safety for Anson Dorrance in the number of players he not only keeps on the roster but regularly uses in games, utilizing college soccer's liberal substitution rules to fuel the waves of pressure the Tar Heels have for decades used to swamp opponents.
But this weekend may have introduced a new twist. Goalkeepers haven't been exempt from the substitution patterns -- some of those titles were won while platooning keepers between halves. Still, it is some show of faith in the idea of depth to send a backup freshman goalkeeper to the penalty spot in a shootout against the hottest team in college soccer. The Tar Heels did, and freshman Claudia Dickey calmly and clinically converted what proved to be the decisive attempt when starting goalkeeper Samantha Leshnak then stonewalled UCLA All-American Jessie Fleming.
When Santa Clara tried that move in a shootout, the No. 3 seed was eliminated in the second round and didn't even get a chance to play UCLA. When North Carolina tried it, the result ended the Bruins' 12-game winning streak. That sums up college soccer history for almost 40 years.
North Carolina doesn't have anyone who has scored more than six goals this season, a far cry from Florida State's Castellanos, Stanford's Macario or Georgetown's Farrell. Without injured striker Alessia Russo, North Carolina has six players who have scored either five or six goals this season, among them a defender, a holding midfielder and a freshman who doesn't start.
That isn't to say the Tar Heels lack stars. The game against UCLA went to a shootout in no small part because defender Emily Fox made a brilliant run and tackle to deny UCLA's Hailie Mace a clean look at a third goal in the waning minutes. In an all-in duel between two players who auditioned for the U.S. senior team this fall, Fox came out the winner. A host of other Tar Heels are U.S. youth internationals and all-ACC selections. Many will be pros.
It may not be Kristine Lilly passing to Mia Hamm or Tobin Heath passing to Heather O'Reilly, but there is always talent in Chapel Hill.
But there is also always faith that depth and system will prevail in the end. Just ask Dickey.