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After West’s RBI, the pitching duel was over, and so was Maxwell’s night, ending with 2 1/3 innings pitched and allowing three hits and two runs.

Lexi Kilfoyl entered the circle and walked the first batter, loading the bases before turning the next two Vol batters out with her fielding, limiting the damage to two runs.

In the top of the fourth, Micaela Wark got on base with a single, but Tennessee had already turned two outs in the inning. Tallen Edwards then entered the box and fired one to the right field wall.

Wark locked eyes with Gajewski, who was at third, as she rounded second base.

“The way we teach our base running at third is you have to run with your head up, and I caught her eyes coming around short, so I was like, ‘OK, I got her,’” Gajewski said.

Wark booked it, and as she rounded third base and put her eyes up for just a moment while keeping her head down, her coach was waving her off. Wark hesitated and decided to sprint the remaining 60 feet toward the plate. On a bang-bang play, Wark was thrown out at home, ending the inning. Even after a review for obstruction, the decision was upheld.

“I got my hands up; she had her head down,” Gajewski said. “It is what it is.”

Both teams went three-up, three-down until the bottom of the fifth, where the Volunteers added another run to their lead off a misfired throw from OSU catcher Taylor Tuck to Kiley Naomi, who was covering second base as shortstop, trying to pick off a baserunner stealing second.

The Cowgirls looked dead in the water until Wynne’s home run, which gave both the OSU dugout and fans a jolt of much-needed energy.

However, Rogers continued to shut down the Cowgirls after Wynne’s home run, totaling 136 pitches on the night in a complete game.

“I feel like I’m pretty conditioned,” said Rogers, who’s thrown over 100 pitches in seven other games this season. For Gajewski and Co., especially the seniors, it’s a tough pill to swallow. For Wynne, this place made her the woman she’s become; for Gajewski, he’ll be writing different names on a lineup card for the first time in years.

“Stillwater has been life-changing,” Wynne said. “I came here a completely different person, and I’m leaving the person I wanted to become... I was ‘Morgyn the softball player’ when I got here, and that’s all I was when I was at my previous institution, and I came here, and I turned into a woman who’s ready for her career.

“They (her teammates) mean the world to me; it’s very hard to explain. I’m very grateful.”

“I’ve been able to write her (Naomi’s) name at shortstop for four or five years now,” Gajewski said. “And it’s gonna be weird to not be able to do that.”

The Cowgirls, despite a top-six finish, fell short of their ultimate goal of hoisting a trophy after the final game. Gajewski says they’ll be back, but only time will tell. Until then, this postseason is more about tears than trophies.

“We’ll be back,” Gajewski said. “We’ll be right back here next year and make another run.” sports.ed@ocolly.com