BUFFALO, N.Y. — The end was met with tears.

They piled up like the runs the Butler Sting 18-and-under softball team scored this season in reaching the 2016 Girls Fastpitch B Eastern World Series.

After a 4-2 loss to the Ancaster Blizzard, a team from Canada, in the final game and sixth-place finish at the national tournament last week, the realization that this was the last time she’d put on the telltale pink Sting jersey hit Karns City graduate Saydie Moore.

Hard.

“It was bad,” Moore said. “It was real bad. There were a lot of tears.”

Moore, who just celebrated her 19th birthday Monday, ended a five-year run with the Sting in the national tournament.

Also playing in their last game with the Sting were Butler grads Noel Pfabe, Emily McDonald and Kate Burnett.

“It was definitely emotional,” Pfabe said. “Our last game, there was a lot of emotion out there.

“I’m going to miss them. For five years we made a heck of a lot of memories.”

Finishing in the Top 10 at the national tournament is one of them.

The Sting won their pool with 7-6 and 11-1 wins, but ran into a University of Buffalo recruit in the bracket round and lost 9-0.

The Sting got just one hit.

“She was one of the best pitchers we’ve ever seen,” Moore said. “I think if we could have made it through the lineup one more time, we would have gotten to her.”

After a 7-2 win in the losers bracket, the Sting eventually fell to the Canadian team to see their run end.

“We had an awesome coach (Scott Pierce) and incredible fans, friends and families,” Moore said. “They really supported us and believed in us.”

Moore will play her second season this spring for the Butler County Community College softball team.

Pfabe, Karns City graduate Ashley Coon and Burnett will also join the Pioneers.

Karns City sophomore Alyssa Stitt, though, is just getting started with the Sting.

In her second season, Stitt was one of the leading hitters.

“Alyssa’s bat has been great for us,” Pierce said before the team left for Buffalo. “She always seems to come up with the big hit for us.”

Stitt struggled a bit with the Sting last season, but the 15-year-old came into her own this year.

She owed a lot of that to the older players on the team who she said have helped her become a better player.

“They have helped me out so much,” Stitt said. “I look up to them a lot. Noel is a great player. Emily (McDonald) is our No. 1 pitcher. They just taught me so much.”

Stitt wasn’t on the team the last time the Sting reached the World Series in 2014, placing 13th.

She said the experience of playing in such a big tournament can only help her in the long run.

“We wanted to finish in the Top 10 and we did that,” Stitt said. “This experience is going to help me out a lot.”