After a first-round bye, the Mariners lost to the eventual small school champion Sitka Wolves 4-3 on Friday.
Sitka scored three runs in the second inning on hits by Natalie Potrzuski, a walk by Morley Gordon and a deep shot to right field by Lela McArthur.
The Mariners had runners on third base in each of the first two innings with a Kailee Pollack triple in the first and a Brittney VanSandt hit, passed ball and steal.
But the Sitka pitcher Robyn Schlins, struck out seven Mariner batters in the first three innings alone to stop any early rally.
"We had trouble connecting with the ball this weekend," said Mariner pitcher Nyssa Baechler. "It wasn't the speed, I'm not sure exactly what it was. People were striking out that normally don't."
In the top of the fourth, the Mariner bats finally showed some life as Britta Baechler hit a double and Kayla Creamer knocked in two runs with a single to make the score 3-2.
After a scoreless fifth inning, play was suspended for more than an hour as rain from a large thundercloud passed overhead.
When play resumed the Mariners tied the game on a base hit by Pollack and a double by VanSandt.
Sitka came back to take the lead, however, as Potrzuski hit a triple and was knocked home by a base hit from Gordon.
Needing three outs to advance, Schlins shut down the Mariners in the top of the seventh inning with three straight strikeouts.
Schlins finished with 13 in the game.
Mariner Head Softball Coach Bill Bell said Schlins was the best the team has seen all season.
"She was throwing a good curve," said Bell. "She was the fastest, best controlled pitcher we'd seen in a while."
The loss put Homer in the bottom half of the bracket, where they faced the Eielson Ravens Saturday morning and had a similar performance.
Bell said scheduling might have hurt Homer's chances.
"The competition was geared up," Bell said. "I think we were a little bit rusty, all those other teams had been playing till the very end (of the season)."
After a pair of scoreless innings, Eielson put three on a series of runs and a couple Mariner defensive mistakes.
The Mariners rallied in the top of the fourth, however and took the lead 4-3 on a series of walks, a double by Lauren Bell, and a pair of bloopers over the infield by Creamer and Lonna Roe.
The Ravens came back to tie the game when Megan Romano scored from second after a pick-off play sailed over Creamers head on the bag.
After a strikeout and a ground out to first, Hayley Thurman hit a ball sharply to first and charged home on a series of passed balls to give the Ravens the lead.
A hit by Cathleen Pelltier scored another Raven runner to make the score 6-4.
After a scoreless fifth inning, and with time running out, the Mariners mounted another rally.
Down to their last out, VanSandt — who batted 1.000 for the tournament — got a base hit and was driven home by a triple to left center field by Creamer to cut the lead to one.
But Roe grounded out to the pitcher for the final out of the game to end the season for the Mariners.
The Ravens would end up taking third in the tournament.
Baechler said the team was disappointed with its performance at state but was looking forward to next year.
"We're only losing a couple of seniors, so we'll come back hard next year," she said.
As for the competition at state Baechler said it was what they expected.
"We knew they were going to be even. We'd never seen Sitka or Eielson so we expected they were going to be tough," Baechler said.
"Anything can happen, it just didn't happen for us."
The Mariners grabbed the Academic Award with a grade point average of 3.55.
VanSandt was named to the All Tournament Team.
Ben Stuart can be reached at ben.stuart@homernews.com.
Hez Ray Field No. 3 wasn't kind to the Mariner softball team over the weekend, as the No.1-seeded team dropped two one-run games there to get bumped from the small school state softball tournament in Fairbanks.
"We were having trouble pulling it together," said Baechler. "We'd get on a roll and something would happen."
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