SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. -- Skip Palmer smiled.

He laughed.

He spoke cordially with reporters, shook the hands of parents and walked around with a triumphant demeanor and assured gait.

To see him during postgame festivities Friday, one easily could have thought the Shaler Area softball coach had led his team to a victory in the PIAA Class AAAA championship against Parkland.

Not so.

Shaler lost, 5-1.

"They are true champions," Palmer said of Parkland.

But even on the heels of a tough loss on the state's largest softball stage, this was no time for disappointment: The Titans' run to the title game came tremendously unexpected to many, as just two seniors dotted the roster and neither of those were starters.

"Am I disappointed in our season, in what we did this year? No way," Palmer said. "We went out there and we fought. Sometimes, you go up against a team that is better than you on a certain day. And, on this day, they were better than us."

Palmer was right, his assessment spot on.

Parkland fell behind, 1-0, after the first inning, but with a three-run outburst in the third complemented by stellar pitching from Deanna Stinner, the Titans were overmatched by the school from Allentown.

Still, the victory -- to a large degree -- for Shaler rested in the fact that the Titans were simply there, that they ran out on Robb Field at Shippensburg University that day.

After all, this was a season that began 6-4 for the Titans, but they persevered and fought all the way through to the WPIAL and PIAA championship games.

In that WPIAL title clash, though, the Titans realized disappointment, as Hempfield knocked off Shaler, 3-2, in a game that took two days to complete because of rain.

Such a blow might have deteriorated all the drive and fortitude of some teams -- but not this youthful Shaler bunch.

They pulled it back together and fought through City League champion Brashear in the opening round of the PIAA playoffs.

That win landed the Titans a shot at redemption.

In the PIAA quarterfinals, in stormed Hempfield, the owners of those shiny WPIAL gold medals and, perhaps just as important, players who had an unabashed and assured confidence that they had beaten that very same Shaler team just one week earlier.

None of that mattered to Shaler.

The Titans edged Hempfield, 1-0, in a thriller they won in the bottom of the seventh and went on to beat Central Bucks South in another one-run game -- the score was 2-1 -- in the semifinals to earn a shot against Parkland.

The Parkland game didn't go the way Shaler wanted. There is no question that when the Titans took the field with the PIAA title in the balance, they wanted win. Taking home a silver medal was not the intent.

But one cannot argue about the experience extracted from this run.

Think about what it did for junior pitcher Abby Nichter to throw all those meaningful innings and how she will use that experience next season as a senior.

Think about the left side of the infield, junior shortstop Chelsea Siar and sophomore third baseman Sam Montoya, and how they meshed to form a bond that helped carry this Shaler team -- and might help carry it further next season.

Think about the cohesion formed by the three juniors in the outfield: Gina Goss, Holly Pefferman and Britt DeFazio.

Think about how the three freshman starters -- first baseman Jamie Roth catcher Lauren Hackett and second baseman Jess Vannucci -- used this run to two title games as a springboard for the rest of their high school careers.

So while Shaler didn't win a WPIAL or PIAA crown, just getting to both title games was a victory because of what it very well might have done for the future.