LOS ANGELES—A group of young girls approached Laura Boyer after the game and asked the Marquette goalkeeper to sign their UCLA soccer T-shirt. Then they scampered off in the direction of Heather Goranson. The senior defender, whose collegiate career had just ended in a 4-0 loss to the Bruins, autographed the shirt after wiping away her leftover tears.

"I know there's a lot of tears out here, and there's a lot of sad faces," said associate head coach Frank Pelaez. "But there's nothing really to be sad about."

Conflicting emotions tugged at the Marquette (19-4-1) players, whose dream season had endured a disappointing finish. The lopsided loss to top-seeded UCLA (20-1-2) in the NCAA third round match Saturday concluded the Golden Eagles' best season in program history.

"We know, as high of a level as we play at, there's another level," said head coach Markus Roeders. "We can't deny that. We're not there yet."

UCLA, which lost to Notre Dame in penalty kicks in the 2004 NCAA championship match, imposed its superiority from the outset and took a quick lead. Senior Jill Oakes found freshman Kara Lang on the left wing with a long overhead ball before Lang cut inside two Marquette defenders and scored from 10 yards out in the third minute.

"Letting that first goal in was our biggest mistake," Goranson said.

"That first goal, that early," Roeders added, "put us on our heels a little bit."

And then some.

UCLA attacked in fluent waves and raided the flanks with pace and precision.

Among countless Bruin scoring chances, Bristyn Davis' 28th-minute lob struck the Marquette crossbar, and Boyer made a diving save to keep out a close-range header from Iris Mora.

"They get multiple runners forward. They start exposing you with combination play and the speed of play," Roeders said. "In some ways we were happy just to be looking at 1-0 at halftime."

UCLA out-shot Marquette 12-0 in the first 45 minutes. The Golden Eagles had better spells during the second half as the Bruins became frustrated that they had failed to put the game out of reach. Marquette's best chance at an equalizer occurred when junior forward Meghan Connelly blasted a shot over the net from a tight angle.

"We fought for every inch of the field," Boyer said. "It just didn't … they're a good team."

And good teams put their opponents away, which the Bruins eventually did in a three-goal barrage in the final 15 minutes. Lang flicked a corner kick onto the head of Stacy Lindstrom, who nudged the ball past Boyer to double the lead.

Lang tapped in a rebound of Lindstrom's breakaway shot for her second goal of the game and 15th of the season. The fourth mirrored the second goal, with Oakes using her head to knock down a corner kick into the path of Blake Zerboni, who headed the ball into the net.

There were no last-second-overtime-goal heroics to save them this time, but the efforts of Boyer, who kept Marquette in the game with eight saves, caught the attention of more than just a few wide-eyed, autograph-hungry young girls.

A teenage girl and her father later approached Boyer, a stranger to both of them, after the game and offered sympathy. The girl was a sophomore goalkeeper for a local high school team and asked Boyer for some advice. Boyer cooperated and acted as a role model for a minute or two.

The aspiring goalkeeper was not the only person who admired the Marquette players.

"The best part of life right now is that I get to wear the name 'Marquette' across my chest, and that's what they wear across their chests," Pelaez said.