There were no tears.

Not even while players gathered their belongings as Alexander Central prepared to take the field next, nor while huddling as a team for the final time. Even the seniors were dry-eyed, electing to reflect on a 21-6 overall record, a third-place finish and the program's first-ever East Regional championship instead of pining for one more game in a black-and-orange uniform.

"We've never been this far. When I came [to the Final Four] in 2000 we were 3-A and we came in fourth place, so I'm very happy," FV coach Deb Clarke said. "We played with a lot of enthusiasm, lot of togetherness, a lot of chemistry for being so young and they had a lot of fun out here. I'm very proud of them and can't say enough about them."

Although the Lady Bengals have won a conference championship in all but one of the 11 years under Clarke, this year's team didn't get off to a championship-caliber start. Fuquay lost three of the first five games of the year all by a 2-1 score.

But once the conference season rolled around, the Bengals picked up steam and never looked back, going 18-1 until making it to the Final Four for only the second time in school history.

"We definitely didn't think that we would accomplish [this] at the beginning of the season," senior pitcher Alex Ryan said. "[The East Regional final] meant a lot last night. We were all really happy for each other no matter what happened today."

In their final game of the year, the Bengals gave up two first-inning runs on a double by North Davidson's Tara Aldridge. The second run came in standing up after a throwing error by third baseman Hannah Wallace drew both Ryan and freshman catcher Alyssa White away from home plate, opening up the chance for Tisha Mahon to score.

The Bengals' best chance to get on the scoreboard was erased in the third after Alexa Cannon was called out at first base, negating a run scored by Jacqueline Jones.

Although it appeared Cannon had beaten the throw by a step, thus cutting the lead to one and putting runners on the corners with two outs for clean-up hitter Natalie Budde, the inning came to a close.

North Davidson tagged on two more runs in the fifth and totaled 11 hits on the day. The Bengals, meanwhile, had just four hits on the day as the 1-5 hitters batted just one-for-10 on the day.

"The last game that we just played and the games that we played today were not up to our full potential but we practiced and did everything we could and we improved so much during the season," Ryan said. "We didn't play the game we had been playing in the past couple of playoff games but we're just so happy to be here."

Fuquay will lose four seniors — Ashley Canova, Amber Baker, Ryan and Jones — from this year's team and returns only rising juniors and sophomores next season.

"It's good to do it our senior year," Canova said. "This year, we practiced till 6:30 or longer every day and we did really good, better than we've ever done."

Ryan, whom Clarke called "obviously the best pitcher in the East" hurled every single pitch that Fuquay threw this year and in doing so struck out 10.4 batters per game. Replacing her will be a nearly impossible task after carrying the Bengals to unprecedented milestones.

"I look into next year and I'm thinking 'Lord, somebody transfer in,'" Clarke said. "We don't look to replace [Ryan], we just look for someone who can get it in there and let our defense and our bats go to work."

Fuquay won the East Regional title on Friday by virtue of a walk-off single by Wallace that scored Canova in the bottom of the 10th. Fuquay then moved on to the winners' bracket, where it dropped its first game in the double-elimination tournament to Alexander Central, 10-0 in five innings.