NAMPA — Watching Aberdeen play in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s 2A state title game felt like playing Where’s Waldo. You had to squint, think, search. You had to scour the frame for something missing.

Where was the Tigers team that showed up in the third quarter?

In the days ahead, when Aberdeen thinks about its 58-45 loss to Cole Valley Christian in the 2A state championship game at the Idaho Center, the Tigers will regret the way the fourth frame unfolded. They took control late in the third frame. They led by as many as eight. Then, in the school’s first appearance in a state championship game, things unraveled.

“Cole Valley’s a very good, high-percentage-shooting team,” Aberdeen coach Lincoln Driscoll said. “We had some good shots and they didn’t land. They were hitting their free throws. They shot a high percentage tonight. Sometimes that’s the way the ball bounces.”

For Aberdeen, if the result stings, it’s because it felt so avoidable. Yasmin Ortiz tallied five triples for 15 points and Ellie Watson added 11 for the Tigers. They trailed big early, but they countered the Chargers’ advantages in the size department with a flurry of baskets, pouring them in from so many angles you might call them mathematicians.

The problem for the Tigers: Those baskets dried up when the fourth quarter arrived. When Cole Valley guard Ellie Fraas knocked down a trey, she kickstarted a 13-0 run, which flipped the Chargers’ three-point lead into a 16-point advantage. By then, only two minutes remained, which meant Aberdeen’s chances were slim. They evaporated entirely moments later.

Cole Valley did get hot, to be sure, but Aberdeen also cooled off to a chill. In the fourth stanza, the Tigers put up these numbers: 2-for-10 shooting, including 0-for-4 from distance, five turnovers and, most importantly, just six points. Even that includes two free throws with less than a second to go.

At this point, if you’re wondering what on earth happened, you aren’t alone.

“They were denying Ellie pretty well,” Driscoll said. “We were trying to get the ball into Ellie. They denied and double-teamed her well. We got shots. They just didn’t drop for us.”

So what was behind that?

“I think it comes back to rhythm,” Driscoll added. “When they can’t get in that rhythm with Ellie and they can’t kick out, they kinda force it. I think it’s about rhythm.”

Translation: Eventually, Aberdeen succumbed to the size mismatches it faced at nearly every position. Fraas stands 6-foot-1. Her sister, Hadley — who posted 22 points — is 5-foot-10. Toss in 6-foot guard Lyndsie Krogh, who totaled another 21 points, and you start to understand how the Chargers put this one away.

They were too long, too athletic, too physical for Aberdeen. More importantly, Cole Valley doesn’t roster one of those players. The Chargers have three.

“It factored into it, for sure,” Driscoll said. “That height and length, they close the passing lanes. They close the gaps better. They’ve got more length on rebounds. That’s definitely a factor, for sure.”

That leaves Aberdeen to process a season, a state tournament, that featured enough twists for three or four years’ worth. The Tigers bolted out to a 7-2 start to the season, only to fall to Soda Springs. Then they rattled off a five-game winning streak, which ended with another loss to the Cardinals. That’s when Aberdeen won five more, a stretch that came to an end with — you guessed it — a loss to Soda Springs.

Except the darndest thing happened. In the second round of the 2A District 5 tournament, Aberdeen topped Soda Springs, 47-40. That set up another meeting between the Tigers and Cardinals, this one for the district crown. Aberdeen won that one too, 32-26, moving onto state while Soda Springs — the longtime district power — snuck into state via play-in game.

For Aberdeen, it isn’t even just that, though. To get to Saturday’s state title game, the Tigers had to upset top-seeed Grangeville, which hadn’t lost since late December, and that was to a 5A team. The Tigers sent them home in a stunner.

So there they were, taking photos in a back hallway of the Idaho Center, one of the team’s final activities of a season that you could pitch for an HBO show. It made Driscoll think: How do you process such a year, upsets and wins and runner-up trophy and all?

“At this point, for the girls, what they accomplished was great,” Driscoll said. “The Grangeville game, I felt like we were the better team, so I was confident in that one. This one, the height and the length, is a factor. But we had our chance, and the ball didn’t bounce right. So I feel good about it.”