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ӣ����Ƶ remains a championship city for the UFL, but the Battlehawks came up short of playing for a championship for the second year in a row.

The sting of that settled in well before the final seconds ticked off the clock in the XFL Conference playoff game on Sunday night. Spectators filtered out of their seats and made their way to the exits of the Dome at America’s Center by the midpoint of the fourth quarter.

Head coach Anthony Becht apologized to the fans that support the Battlehawks in his remarks following a game D.C. thoroughly controlled and that Becht described as “a slow death.”

“We just didn’t make the plays that our guys have been making this entire season, and it hurts,” Becht said. “It’s disappointing because these guys really wanted it. I hate the old cliche, ‘Oh, you know these games happen.’

“I haven’t had this game. This is very surprising.”

The Battlehakws players took nothing away from the D.C. Defenders’ dominant performance, but their frustrations stemmed almost entirely from their own play. They faltered in so many uncharacteristic ways and caused their season to crumple to an unsatisfying end.

That’s the maddening part: knowing you were so close, had played some of your best games down the stretch but you just didn’t show up in the playoffs. That lands like a punch from a heavyweight fighter.

“It definitely hurts,” linebacker Willie Harvey said. “We’re competitors. We all want to win, but it’s a great learning lesson for the guys. We’ve got to take it on the chin and move forward.”

For the second year in a row, the Battlehawks fell a game shy of playing for the UFL championship on their home turf in the Dome in America’s Center.

It felt like this was their year. Everything told us they were poised to break through this time.

The way they’d bounced back from injuries and losses gave you reason to believe. The depth they displayed made a strong case that they’d put together as deep and as good of a team as possible.

They finished the season with six straight wins. They even kept the pedal to the metal and avoided a late letdown after they had a playoff berth sewn up and a home playoff game assured. They pushed forward in a way that seemed to point to bigger things ahead.

Except it didn’t.

The defense, which had propped up the offense at times this season, gave up 388 yards of total offense and an average of 6.2 yard per play on Sunday. They forced one turnover, an interception that set up the Battlehawks’ first touchdown.

“For me we preached about taking care of the football all week, just being smart with the ball and taking what they give me,” D.C. Defenders quarterback and former Battlehawk Jordan Ta’amu said.

“Sustaining drives, that was our main goal. We knew it was going to come down to who was going to make less errors. If I could take back the throw (the interception), of course I would take back the throw. Other than that, our main goal was just to play our ball, don’t get into our heads too much.”

The Defenders, who converted 7 of 11 third downs, didn’t come out with an entirely different and wildly inventive playbook. They collectively played better than the Battlehawks defense and took advantage of mistakes or breakdowns.

“When you a play three times, of course they’ve got wrinkles,” Harvey said. “But for the most part, it’s the same things, the same schemes, the same formations, the same run (plays). It was all pretty much the same.”

Meanwhile, the Battlehawks offense never built any momentum.

Even at its best, it didn’t look to anyone’s eyes as the reincarnation of the “Greatest Show on Turf,” but the Battlehawks made strides in recent weeks under quarterback Max Duggan.

Duggan, who’d been undefeated since he replaced the injured Manny Wilkins as the starter, played his best and showed the highest level of comfort and synchronicity in the offense before he sat out last week’s regular season finale on the road against the Defenders.

None of that carried over into the playoffs. Duggan used his legs well to gain chunks of yards and keep possessions alive, but the D.C. pass rush put him off-kilter.

The first time Duggan looked to take a deep shot downfield, he ended up pump-faking and ultimately got clobbered for a sack and fumble. From that moment forward, the Defenders’ pressure held its thumb on the Battlehawks offense and Duggan.

D.C. sacked Duggan and forced him to fumble twice in the first half. The only scoring “drive” came after Battlehawks cornerback Myles Jones intercepted a pass and gave his team possession at the D.C. 21-yard line. Duggan never looked steady in the pocket.

“I think I’ve got to get the ball out quicker,” Duggan said. “I’ve got to get through my reads. I’ve got to see it well. I wasn’t seeing it very well, and that falls on me holding onto the ball longer than I should.”

Becht turned to back up quarterback Brandon Silvers, who signed with the team midseason, for a “spark” to start the second half. Silvers handled the pressure better and the offense moved significantly better with him on the field.

However, Silvers suffered a shoulder injury in the third quarter and left the game after he led them on a six-play, 72-yard touchdown drive that made the score 26-12. Silvers took a pounding on the touchdown pass to wide receiver Hakeem Butler and threw a 2-point conversion pass into traffic before he exited.

Asked about the way his team handled adversity this season, Butler said, “That’s just who we’ve been from the beginning. Us dealing with adversity is nothing new. The adversity will change every time, but we won’t change. We won’t fold. We just didn’t get the outcome we wanted today.”

The Battlehawks must now hope this postseason jinx will eventually become just another example of the adversity they overcame.