Ryan Duffy, the captain of Appalachian State's men's soccer team, remembers a day in early September when Shaun Pendleton, who was the team's coach, didn't show up for practice.
"No one was sure where he was," Duffy said.
That night, Duffy got a call from assistant coach Matt Nelson to get the team together for a meeting.
"I sensed the urgency in his voice," Duffy said. "We were told that night in the meeting that coach Pendleton was dead. The reaction was just shock. I don't think anyone said a word for close to an hour."
Pendleton, 49 and in his fourth season as ASU's coach, was found dead in his Boone home on Sept. 6. The Watauga County sheriff's office said that the death was classified as an unattended death, and that foul play wasn't suspected.
It has been a difficult season for the team. It has also been one of its best.
The Mountaineers have a legitimate chance to win their first Southern Conference championship since 1990 and advance to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1980.
They'll face UNC Greensboro at 4 p.m. today in the SoCon tournament semifinals at the Appalachian Soccer Stadium, where the tournament will wrap up Sunday at 1 p.m.
In getting to this point, the Mountaineers had an 11-game unbeaten streak — the third-longest in the nation this season and the program's longest in 23 years — and recorded a school-record 11 shutouts. They rank among the nation's leaders in several defensive categories.
All this from a team that was picked to finish fifth in the league and had no player chosen for the preseason all-conference team. And all this from a team that faced a much tougher challenge — dealing with their grief, just three games into the season.
The team took a day off after news of Pendleton's death and then voted overwhelmingly to finish the season.
They missed Pendleton, an energetic force noted for his passion for the game. "He ate, drank, slept and thought soccer all day, every day," said senior Sean Dreybus, the team's leading scorer.
But they handled it.
"There was a period of time where everyone was shocked and didn't know how to react," Duffy said. "There's really no formula for how to react. I think coach Matt did a great job of bringing the team together after it happened. We became closer. And I really think that's why we've had the results we've had."
Nelson, who played for Pendleton at Lynn College and was hired by Pendleton when he became coach at ASU in 2008, was named acting head coach. Last Tuesday, Nelson was named the SoCon's coach of the year. He has guided the Mountaineers to a 9-2-4 record since Pendleton's death.
"I had known Shaun for 15 years and had seen him just about every day for the last 3½ years," said Nelson, who will turn 34 on Saturday. "It never really crossed my mind that what happened was a possibility. You sort through that, and then realize there's a team of 27 kids that are second-guessing themselves."
Nelson stressed to the players to spend a lot of time together. He told them results didn't matter, to just play the game.
"Honestly, I think practices became a way to get our minds off the whole thing," Dreybus said.
Nelson said: "The whole situation really brought the team together and brought out some leaders on the team. These guys really leaned on each other during the process — became incredibly tight and close — and I think that's one of the main reasons we went on the run."
Duffy, a senior and the Mountaineers' top defender, credited Nelson with making some technical and tactical adjustments that made the team better. Nelson credited the team for keeping its focus and becoming better.
"It's amazing, really, that they handled everything the way they did," Nelson said.
"We didn't give up on the game," Duffy said. "And I don't think there's a player on this team that doesn't expect to win this weekend."
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