For the past 11 months, the Florida State softball team had been eyeing a return trip to Oklahoma City. That was the goal. The mindset. The expectation.

And despite a historic regular season, despite a thrilling ACC Championship, despite two run-rule wins to start the NCAA Tournament, the Seminoles' dream of returning to the Women's College World Series died in stunning fashion at JoAnne Graf Field on Sunday.

In the span of five hours, everything they had worked for was over.

It's what makes the postseason in sports so wonderfully maddening. And at times, utterly heartbreaking.

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The team that had made a habit of winning so many close games, so many down-to-the-last pitch affairs, the team that had always seemed to come up with the big play or the big pitch or the big hit when it mattered most, couldn't come up with any of them when it really did matter the most.

And their season, in a flash, was over.

Which is the best way to sum up the postseason, isn't it? Well, not in the NBA, where it lasts for seemingly six months, but for the college sports played on a diamond.

The end can sneak up so quick that you don't actually realize what happened until it's over.

Florida State's players were legitimately stunned after the second game on Sunday. The fans in the stadium were, too. So were all of us.

Because all season long, you just knew -- you knew -- that these Seminoles would find a way to win if a game was close in the final few innings. That's what makes what happened Sunday even more shocking.

Not just that the Seminoles were 32-0 in non-conference games heading into that day. Not just that they had won 24 straight NCAA regional games, going back nearly a decade. And not just because they had played two easy run-rule games the previous two days, while Mississippi State had been fighting for its tournament life.

Even in a close game, even with the Bulldogs taking the lead against ace pitcher Kathryn Sandercock, you had all the confidence in the world the Seminoles would figure out a way to touch home plate two more times and erase the 4-3 deficit.

It didn't happen.

And a historic season ended just like that; with 54-5 on Saturday turning into 54-7 on Sunday.

I wouldn't be surprised at some point if head coach Lonni Alameda admitted this was the most painful loss of her career. And she's someone who tasted defeat in the championship game of the World Series just last year.

At least with that team, you felt like it reached the apex of how high it could go. Yes, it was six outs away from a national title. But it so far exceeded expectations that I have to assume those two losses in Oklahoma City felt different than this one. Her 2021 team had played so well on the biggest stage -- and accomplished so much -- that I imagine she looks back at that entire postseason with great joy.

She'll never look back at the 2022 postseason with anything but sadness. Nobody associated with Florida State Softball will.

Because the regular season was so special, so uncommon, that it seemed as if the Seminoles were on a magical ride that wouldn't end until they were either hoisting a trophy, or at least in Oklahoma City.

That's what this regular season deserved.

But the postseason in sports has a way of kicking your legs out from under you when you get too comfortable. A not-great team can get hot (take the 2019 FSU baseball team, for example) and go on a great run.

And a great team can have one bad day -- ONE BAD DAY -- and see its season come crashing out of the heavens.

The ecstasy and the agony.

"It's definitely not the definition of our season by any means," Alameda said. "It's more about today was Mississippi State's day. Nothing went for us. ... But you've still got to execute this time of year and you can see that. I think the biggest thing is, when you put your head on your pillow at night, you know you did your all. And I definitely think that this team did that.

"They gave us a lot this year, and so (I'm) really proud of them."

She's also crushed for them.

Alameda will get more chances at Florida State. She'll coach more great teams.

For someone like Sydney Sherrill, who came back for one more year, this is the end of the road in college softball.

She had a great career. She won a national championship. And on Sunday, she hit a two-run homer in the first inning of Game 2 that propelled the Seminoles into the lead.

Throughout her time at FSU, she helped end a whole bunch of other teams' seasons and other players' careers in the postseason.

On Sunday, sadly, the roles were reversed. And she was the one at the podium, struggling to speak, as the other team celebrated a few feet away.

Again. That's the nature of sports. It's why we watch. It's why we care. It's why, at times, it can be so exhilarating. And so excruciating.

It won't happen for a while, maybe not until the Women's College World Series is over in a few weeks, but I sure hope Sherrill will appreciate what she's meant to this program and this community since she first arrived from Oklahoma.

She'll go down as one of the all-time greats in school history. A difficult five-hour stretch on Sunday will not affect that in any way.

"Florida State has meant everything to me, and I’m really thankful that I got to play five years here," she said through tears after the game. "Thankful for that extra COVID year, and thankful for this coaching staff. It's an immeasurable amount of things for me as a person and a player, and I just don’t really know how to pay them back.

"I am just very grateful. And it sucks (to lose), but I’m thankful to still be a Seminole.”

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Talk about this story with other Florida State football fans in the Tribal Council