Twelve months after it fell one victory short of the one prize it wanted the most, the Liverpool softball team returned to South Glens Falls for the state Class AA final four, seeking to take that last step and finally earn the program’s first state championship.

Yet this trip to the Moreau Recreational Park ended just like it did in 2014, with the Warriors making its way to the title game, only to get turned away.

This time, it was Orchard Park, the Section VI champions from the Buffalo suburbs, who made its dreams come true at Liverpool’s expense, prevailing 11-2 in Saturday night’s title game.

Single runs in the first and third innings gave the Warriors a 2-0 lead on Orchard Park, but things began to unravel in the bottom of the third, when the Quakers scored twice to pull even.

Then, just before the bottom of the fourth inning, the game was delayed 20 minutes as Liverpool’s ace, Peyton Bellrose, had to wait for officials to fill a small hole that had develolped in front of the pitcher’s circle.

The long delay worked in Orchard Park’s favor. Wasting little time, the Quakers took advantage of three hits and three errors to gain a 5-2 lead in the fourth, Shaye Swiatek’s two-run single forcing Bellrose out of the game.

Katie Yudin replaced Bellrose, but Orchard Park kept on adding to its lead, getting four runs in the fifth and two runs in the sixth to pull away. Alex Sheehy doubled twice and drove in two runs and Molly Hennessey, who was also the winning pitcher, smashing a two-run home run in the sixth.

Before all that, the Warriors first had to get past Section XI (Suffolk County, Long Island) champion Eastport-South Manor in the state semifinals on Saturday afternoon, which it did by engineering a seventh-inning comeback to sink the Sharks 6-4.

Liverpool was on the spot since Section III’s other two representatives at the state final four, Solvay (Class B) and Hamilton (Class D), had won their respective state semifinal games.

But the Warriors showed that it was ready in the top of the first. Jenna Wike’s single drove in a pair of runs to quickly give Liverpool a 2-0 lead before Bellrose loaded the bases in the bottom of the first and surrendered a single run.

From there, Bellrose allowed nothing more until the bottom of the fourth, when Christina Rizzi’s two-run single put Eastport-South Manor in front, 3-2. An exchange of runs followed in the sixth inning as Liverpool tied it, but then saw the Sharks sneak back in front.

So it went to the top of the seventh, Liverpool three outs from defeat and frustrated by seeing two scoring chances thwarted by runners called out for leaving a base too soon on steal attempts.

That didn’t completely rattle the Warriors, though. Just when it was needed, Liverpool scraped across a run to tie it, 4-4, and then Alicia Hansen, the team’s top hitter all season, hit a two-run single that proved to be the game-winner.

Bellrose recorded the final three outs, helped by a big play from Hansen in the field to quash the Sharks’ own comeback attempt.

That set up the final against Orchard Park, who had beaten Clarkstown South 9-6 in the other state semifinal – and would score plenty of runs again at Liverpool’s expense in the last game of the season.