As seniors, they had been to a pair of Class LL semifinals and had enjoyed an undefeated season but as Keesen Howe quickly pointed out, there was only one thing that they missed out on and it was the thing that they had wanted the most, a state championship.
The NFA Wildcats were denied again Wednesday night by their nemesis, the Glastonbury Tomahawks, who shut them out 2-0 at Rocky Hill High School.
"They had a tremendous season," Coach Rob Briones said afterwards as he looked at senior sweeper Anthony Restivo, prone on the ground, shirt pulled over his head, not wanting to see another NFA season end.
"Honestly, I think I have the best sweeper in the whole state, Restivo was an oustanding player. But they did a good job of shutting down players who were key for us offensively like Andre Nicholas and Keesen," the NFA coach added.
It made it a little easier for Glastonbury when they scored just 2:01 into the game too as NFA was back on their heels early and never recovered, losing to Glastonbury for a third consecutive season in the state tournament.
Keeper Nick Migani watched the first two of those losses from the bench as he played behind Brendon MacFarlane.
"You see it and you're like 'maybe I can change it' and you can't," Migani said. "It's just horrible to go down to the same team over and over again."