Slowly but surely, the Dolores Lady Bears filed out of the locker room at Monte Vista High School after their season-ending loss to the Sargent Farmers on Friday.
With tearful eyes, players fell into the awaiting arms of family and friends there to console them.
The scene was quiet and heavy as reality began to sink in: The season was over.
Dolores played nearly even with Sargent during the first quarter of Friday’s Class 2A Region 1 opener.
And they would have entered the second frame tied at seven if it weren’t for a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Lainie Dillon that gave the Farmers a three-point edge.
But for the remainder of the contest, the Lady Bears struggled to score.
They went cold. There was a lid on the basket. They couldn’t buy a bucket.
All the clichés fit.
The Lady Bears scored just 12 points in the final three quarters, and Sargent cruised into the second round with a 41-19 win.
“We missed easy shots at the bucket,” said head coach Larry Schwartz. “Easy layups and easy 2-foot putbacks. We got our post moves going, but shots just wouldn’t fall.”
Defensively, the Bears played nearly as well as they could have hoped.
They held Sargent to 41 points, limited their transition opportunities and held leading scorer, Quincy Lester, to just six points in the first half.
Lester got hot in the second half and finished with 18 points, and Sargent got second-chance opportunities on the offensive glass, but there were no backbreaking flaws in the Bears’ defense.
It came down to their inability to score.
“Give them credit, too,” Schwartz said. “They played some really good man-to-man defense.”
It wasn’t a fairy tale ending – or even an ideal finish – for the Bears’ season.
But Schwartz noted that after being bounced in the district tournament last year, making it to the regional tournament this season was another step in the right direction.
While the Lady Bears will look to keep moving forward next season – with six varsity players returning – Schwartz made sure to note the contributions of his five seniors: Larissa Umberger, Nichole Kibel, Bri Nuss, Teegan Hite and Kitty Wallace.
“I’m so proud of the senior girls for getting us back here,” he said. “They were great leaders. They’ve got a lot of heart, they’re fighters and they got us back this far.”
