Annie Murphy sat on the ground, 18 yards away from the goal mouth.
She knew something was wrong, yet everything was so right.
The scoreboard at Sun Devil Soccer Field read 3-2, Oregon. Murphy had just scored her second goal of the game to put away Arizona State in overtime Sunday and perhaps save the Ducks’ chances to make the NCAA Tournament in 2001.
And yet, Murphy knew something was wrong.
As senior Beth Bowler, who had scored Oregon’s second goal of the game, went bananas with the rest of the Ducks, she rushed over to Murphy.

“No one realized it until we ran up to hug her,” Bowler said. “She was like, ‘Don’t touch me! I’m hurt!’”
Murphy, Oregon’s humble, talented senior midfielder, tore the medial collateral ligament of her left knee when ASU goalkeeper Kristin Slater tackled her as she scored the game-winner. She does not know if she’ll play again this season.
“I was in shock,” Murphy said of her initial reaction to the injury. “It felt like the bottom half of my leg wasn’t connected to the top half.”
But for one moment Sunday, the South Eugene High graduate was the ultimate hero of an Oregon team that has found many different heroes this season.
“I wouldn’t take it back, because it meant a lot to beat them,” Murphy said Wednesday. “I wish I was healthy. I would be more excited.”
Murphy’s two goals Sunday were her second and third this season, and only the third and fourth of her Oregon career. Despite her low career goal total, the midfielder has been a key to the Ducks’ success this season, head coach Bill Steffen said.
“She’s one of our best players on the ball,” Steffen said. “She’s a very dangerous player wide. She’s not especially fast, like Julie (McLellan) or Crystal (David), but she gives us a different kind of weapon.”
Murphy hasn’t always been a Duck. After she graduated from South Eugene, Murphy attended the University of Utah for a year.
“I’m not even sure why I went there,” Murphy said. “There were things I really liked about it, but I didn’t like the campus. It was empty a lot of the time and boring. Really boring.”
After the homesickness kicked in, Murphy transferred back to Oregon, where her parents could watch her play.
Since coming back to Eugene, Murphy has played a key role on the Oregon squad, as a hustling, bustling and reliable midfielder. Murphy has played in all but one game since transferring to Oregon, and her shot and point totals have gone up each season as she has grown more confident with Steffen’s system.
Despite her offensive improvements, Murphy says she has been working hard on her defensive skills as well.
“This is the first year I’ve thought about where I fit in on defense,” Murphy said. “I’ve worked on it a lot, because it’s sort of been my weakness my whole life.”
With Murphy’s help, and the defensive help from other midfielders such as Sarah Denner, Starr Johnson and Ann Westermark, the Ducks have allowed an all-time low 1.93 goals per game this season.
This weekend, the Ducks will be without Murphy’s presence for the first time since early 1999. Her teammates said the experience will be odd.
“It’s a big loss for us,” said senior Chalise Baysa, who has also played in every game since 1999. “She’s a good player. She’s one of the best on the team. We’ve just got to have confidence in all our players and make up for the loss of her play.”
Murphy might compete in the regular season’s final two games, at Washington and Washington State. She will most likely play if the Ducks make it to the NCAA Tournament.
While she will be forced to watch this weekend’s games from the sidelines, Murphy will always have those few seconds from her thriller in Tempe, when she saved the Ducks’ season, for a few weeks at least.
“I didn’t save it,” Murphy said, laughing. “It wasn’t like I was the only one playing that game. We all deserve credit for that win.”
But Murphy deserves some credit for the win. She did, after all, experience agony and ecstasy, all in the same moment, all in the name of an Oregon victory.