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FLOYD -- This is how it's supposed to work, isn't it?

A high school softball team with nine seniors is generally expected to reach the state tournament, especially when the veterans in question have been playing together for the better part of a decade.

And at a glance, Floyd County's season seemed to go according to plan. For the first time since 2001 -- in other words, for the first time since any of the current players joined the team -- the Buffaloes earned a spot in the Group A tournament, knocking out the two-time defending state champions along the way.

"You work for that ever since you're little," said second baseman Jessica Zeman, one of those nine seniors. "That's the farthest you can go in high school ball and that was our goal this year."

The Buffaloes fell short of their ultimate goal of reaching the semifinals this weekend in Radford, but "they've got a lot to be proud of," coach Wes Starkey said, despite the lingering disappointment of ending the season with late-inning, one-run losses to Glenvar and Gate City this week.

"I think the girls will look back in a few weeks and realize what a great season we had," Starkey said.

A closer look, though, reveals that the path to success this spring was not so easy, even with talented seniors at nearly every position. Floyd's 16-8 record was testament to that.

"It was a little bit of a rocky road," Zeman said. "It was bumpy."

The problem wasn't often defense, and it sure wasn't Stephine Link, a senior right-hander who had 131 strikeouts and a 0.60 ERA in 105 regular-season innings.

Somewhere along the line, the Buffaloes' bats went a bit wobbly, even with Zeman and Link atop a lineup that also included first baseman Heather Farmer, catcher Sam Turpin, center fielder Allie Burgin, right fielder Tara Hall and shortstop Jessica Radford. Outfielders Terri Wade and Kayla Slaughter, the other two seniors, played important complimentary roles.

Midway through the season, Starkey sensed his hitters needed a jolt. "Something that would wake us up a little bit and get our bats going," he said.

So he dug up some tiny Wiffle balls, little plastic things about the size of golf balls, and pitched them to the girls in batting practice. He had them hit off a tee, using a small bat and swinging only one arm at a time. Back to the basics.

Such minute drills weren't much fun for the Buffaloes, but they were worth it when the offense began to pick up late in the season.

Of course, this is high school softball, so it's not as if Floyd was suddenly putting up double-digit run totals. But the output was enough to get the team through the Three Rivers District and into the Region C tournament, which was where the road had ended the past three seasons.

This time, though, the Buffaloes dethroned the mighty James River Knights, Group A champions the past two years, as Link spun a one-hit shutout in the region quarterfinals. They clinched a state tournament berth by beating Galax to advance to the region final.

This had been the goal all along. They were in.

"We definitely realized we had a lot of potential from the start," Farmer said. "We were expecting a lot this year."

But then in Monday's region final, Glenvar stole a 3-2 win at Floyd, scoring the winning run on an infield single in the bottom of the seventh and final inning. The next day, the Buffaloes traveled to Gate City and again watched their opponents steal a walk-off win. The Blue Devils scored the game's only run in the bottom of the eighth, ending Floyd's season.

For most of these nine seniors, there will be no more softball.

Quite likely none of them will find a group of teammates like the ones they had on this team. Since they first took up the sport as kids, they have been friends and rivals in local rec leagues and on summer all-star teams.

"We've played together a long time," Turpin said. "Most of the time all we had to do was look at each other and we know what each other's going to be doing. ... We can criticize each other, praise each other and we don't get mad."

They leave knowing they achieved one goal and came awfully close to a second.

"We came within one swing of the bat of making it" to the state semifinals, Starkey pointed out. "We've got to be satisfied with that."