As his team’s season ended, Johan Cedergren was left feeling both frustration and optimism.The frustration stemmed from the way Kentucky had finished. The Wildcats’ regular season ended a lone result shy of a conference championship. More disappointment would follow in the postseason, with first-round defeats in both the Conference USA and NCAA tournaments.The optimism was a result of what Cedergren sees ahead for UK. His developing program will return all but one regular contributor from a 2014 squad that had one of the best seasons in school history. It was those two conflicting feelings that led Cedergren to declare his expectations for the future in no uncertain terms.”As hard as it is to say right now, I think the future is bright and I will say as firmly as I can that this will not happen again,” Cedergren said. “We are not going to go 0-3 for the games that matter.”A 2-0 defeat against Oakland on Thursday night capped that three-game skid to close a 10-6-3 season. Playing without top playmaker Napo Matsoso and leading goal scorer Justin Laird due to a mandatory card suspension and knee injury, respectively, the Wildcats were unable to overcome an experienced Oakland team.”When it got tough, I thought that they excelled and maybe we have some work to do in terms in the mental toughness and especially when the games little tougher,” Cedergren said. “I thought it was a very big stage for some of the younger guys that were asked to carry a bigger role because of injuries and suspensions and I don’t think we were up for that.”Or perhaps more appropriately, they weren’t up for it yet.A year ago, the Cats, who fielded a roster featuring 20 freshmen and sophomores, called on the disappointment of missing the NCAA Tournament to fuel them through a grueling offseason. This time around, they reached the big stage, but will look to use the mistakes that caused them to come up short as fuel to win the next time they reach it.”Anytime in your life, these are the type of games you want to play in,” goalkeeper Callum Irving said. “When they don’t live up to your expectations, you can go two ways with them. You can either sulk about it and not let it benefit you or you can use it as fuel”Irving, who nearly swept end-of-season C-USA awards, will return and wear the captain’s armband for UK again next season. Five all-conference honorees will rejoin him in 2015, which will be Cedergren’s fourth year at the helm. “Obviously this is not the way you want to end your season but again like Johan said we have a lot to look forward to in the future, as hard as it is to see right now,” Irving said. “We have some great players returning, good recruiting class coming in so I mean right now it is just back to the drawing board, back to work but we will move on from here.”Though the Cats will move on when they reassemble for training in January, they don’t plan to forget Thursday night altogether. There’s still too much to be gained from it.”For us it’s time as a staff and as a squad to grow and develop and to learn from this,” Cedergren said. “But we are not sitting here again next year in the NCAA Tournament.”