The tears were mostly dried up by the time the Milan High School softball team made its way through a maze of sympathetic embraces to find a seat on a welcoming patch of shady grass.

Coach Stacie Heams leaned into the circle of black uniforms and red headbands and told them how proud they should be. As Heams and assistant coach Jennifer Johnson spoke, some of the family and friends that encircled the players - most clad in red Milan T-shirts - shouted in agreement.

“You’re winners in our book,” one said.

In the MHSAA record book, the Big Reds lost the 2011 Division 2 state final 2-1 to defending champion Stevensville Lakeshore on a steamy Saturday afternoon at Bailey Park in Battle Creek.

That’ll remain a recorded fact long after people forget about Milan’s last-gasp, seventh-inning rally, when it strung together three straight singles - matching their total hits through the first six innings. And the clutch double play that Lakeshore freshman third baseman Alex Forsythe turned to snuff out that rally, too.

What shouldn’t be forgotten, Heams reminded her team, is the ground-breaking path the Big Reds (32-3) had just carried the Milan softball program down.

“They just set a legacy for Milan. We’ve never done this,” said Heams, who is now 65-10 in two seasons with a program that had never won a regional title. “They should be proud of that. And it’s something that will never go away, they can always say we were the first team to do this.”

Lakeshore has done it plenty. This title is their sixth since 1995, although the key player was still in middle school during last year’s title run.

Forsythe was solid at third base all day, deftly making outs on 10 grounders and pop-ups that came her way. But none was more important than when she grabbed a Krista Hoevemeyer grounder, tapped third base for a force out and doubled up Hoevemeyer with a strong throw to first.

Milan had already cut Lakeshore’s lead in half with a Cheyenne Brierley RBI single and had runners on first and second with no outs in the bottom of the seventh.

In a flash of Forsythe’s mitt, the Milan side of the Diamond #3 bleachers went from delirious to desperate. Lakeshore relief pitcher Megan Hiler ended things by striking out Dray Garrett.

"We played great defense,'' Lakeshore coach Denny Dock said. "That third baseman, holy cow, Alex was lights out. I've never had a girl dominate a big game like this defensively. They just kept hitting it to her.''

Lakeshore did all of its offensive damage in the fourth inning, when winning pitcher Maggie Hildebrand hit an RBI double and her pinch runner, Lindsey Berndt, scored on a risky two-strike squeeze by Kelly Vigansky.

"Sometimes against good teams and good pitchers that you see here, you have to roll the dice and take some chances,'' Dock said.

Milan pitcher Kat Hoffman, who threw shutouts in her last two playoff games, allowed just five hits and struck out seven.

Hoffman and the rest of the team nodded in agreement during Heams' post-game speech. Carrying a trophy doesn’t make you a champion, Heams told them. The Big Reds played like champions, she said.

There were even a few smiles afterward, when players lined up for team photos with their runner-up trophy. But as players walked into the comforting embrace of their families, more tears began to flow.

The message may set in, eventually.

“It’ll take a while for me,” Hoffman said. “I’m so proud of everybody on the team. But we did set a goal at the beginning of the season to win states and we came up one run short. I mean, it’s going to hurt.”

Rich Rezler is a sports producer/copy editor for AnnArbor.com. Contact him at richrezler@annarbor.com or 734-623-2553.