In only the third D-I Men's Soccer national championship game to ever go into penalty kicks, Virginia finally broke a scoreless tie with top-seeded and undefeated Akron with a 3-2 edge in PK's, giving the Cavs their sixth-ever title and first since 1994. For Akron, a year of unprecedented success ends in cruel irony, with the Zips ending the year without a true loss (although a loss in PK's in the championship game counts as a loss), having not given up a single goal in the entirety of the NCAA Tournament.

Technically, Akron isn't perfect anymore. But the Zips will probably take it.

Officially, Akron's win in penalty kicks over North Carolina in Friday's national semifinals in Cary, N.C., goes into the books as a tie, ending the Zips' NCAA single-season record-tying consecutive win streak at 23 and bringing Akron's record to 23-0-1.

But that'll be 23-0-1 in the national championship game, where the top-seeded Zips will meet second-seeded Virginia, overtime winners over Wake Forest on Friday night. It's the second-ever title appearance for Akron, and the first since 1997 for the Cavaliers, who managed to stand tallest in an ACC and NCAA Tournament that just don't forgive lapses.

As it is, we have the top team in the country -- by far the most dominant club in D-I Men's Soccer this year -- meeting the top team in the nation's premier conference. And it all starts at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Watch it live on ESPN2!

One of the two captains on the Maryland men's soccer team had only three college starts to his name coming into this year. Yet, after two devastating injuries, Kevin Tangney's become the inspiration for a Maryland team out to defend its second national championship in four years.

On Aug. 8, 2007, a group of Maryland men's soccer players got together for a 7-on-7 pickup game in the days leading up to the official start of preseason. Two years removed from the 2005 national championship run but primed with talent groomed through 2006, a feeling of optimism blew through College Park.

In their midst was a redshirt sophomore, Kevin Tangney, who had found his way onto the field after an entire season off of it. Tangney had missed all of 2006 with an ACL tear, suffered while in France for a regional team competition. But he'd rehabbed and thought, in some ways, he was better than before. Stronger. Faster.

He was the second generation of Terps in his family, after his mom, Joanne, came before him -- he was a kid, who, in the words of coach Sasho Cirovski, "breathes Maryland." When Tangney first visited College Park in 2004, he committed on the spot.

And now he ran on a field just 20 yards from his mom's old dorm with a dozen of his best friends, feeling the grass buckle beneath his feet and moving, circling, gliding along the pitch in a way he hadn't since before his leg first failed him in June of 2006.

Then, just four days before his first preseason since shredding the central fibers in his left knee, he planted to make a cut in open space and fell to the ground.