Once again, the Colorado women’s soccer team put together a stirring start against TCU. And this time, the Buffaloes certainly put up a much better fight.

Yet CU still couldn’t reverse the end result.

The Buffs punched home an early goal but couldn’t sustain the momentum against top-seeded TCU, which defeated CU 3-1 on Saturday in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Conference tournament in Kansas City, Mo. CU entered the game at No. 48 in Saturday’s RPI rankings and now must wait and hope results around the nation next week fall the Buffs’ way enough to land an NCAA Tournament berth that has turned into a longshot.

“We knew we had to be more compact and keep the play in front of us,” CU head coach Danny Sanchez said. “Like I told the team, I was proud of how they bought into the game plan. The game plan was to let them have some possession deeper, but limit their shots, limit their shots on goal. Which we did a really good job of. It just didn’t fall our way.”

As was the case during a 6-1 loss against TCU in Boulder on Oct. 5, it was the Buffs who struck first. An Ava Priest flip-throw ended with a header goal from Hope Leyba that gave CU the lead just 38 seconds into the match.

CU (11-4-5) notched a goal in the second minute of the previous matchup against TCU, only to watch the Horned Frogs bury the Buffs with five goals before halftime. It wasn’t nearly as easy this time for seventh-ranked TCU, which controlled the possession but didn’t score an equalizer until the 31st minute, when Seven Castain took advantage of a CU turnover to find Camryn Lancaster, whose shot deflected off a CU defender and past goalie Jordan Nytes.

The match remained tied 1-1 through halftime and into the latter stages of the second half when CU defender Faith Leyba inadvertently struck a TCU crossing pass, leading to a hand ball call and a TCU penalty kick. Nytes guessed correctly on her save attempt, diving to her right, but Castain curled the kick perfectly just inside the post.

The Buffs’ comeback chances were dashed seven minutes later as an unassisted goal from Caroline Kelly gave TCU a two-goal edge.

A season that featured a 10-game unbeaten streak, tying the third-longest in program history, and the program’s best ranking since 2007 at No. 14 might very well end without an NCAA Tournament berth, thanks mostly to a late six-game winless streak (0-2-4) that featured a scoreless drought of nearly 450 minutes. CU entered Saturday as the No. 6 Big 12 team in the RPI, but Saturday’s defeat dropped the Buffs to 1-3-1 against the teams ahead of them.

“[Their] commitment, especially when we went through that dry stretch of not scoring, they kept battling and got draws and stayed in it,” Sanchez said. “I think that said a lot about their character. This is soccer. There’s hundreds of teams that would love to be in our position to be able to hurt a little bit from losing a big match.”