SAN MARCOS - Jordan Kotara stood with her arms folded, a perturbed look on her face. Micah Weaver simply buried her face in her hands, crying until teammate Kelli Kolodziej arrived to console her.

For the Poth Pirettes, it wasn't supposed to end this way. This was going to be another coronation, a day in which they added another jewel to their crown.

Instead, an uncharacteristic performance on Saturday led to another rarity - the Pirettes lost in the Class 2A state final.

White Oak's Abbey Bybel had 19 kills and three aces as the Ladynecks defeated Poth 25-21, 25-23, 14-25, 25-23 before 1,386 fans at Texas State's Strahan Coliseum.

The title was the first for White Oak (46-1), which avenged last year's three-game semifinal loss to Poth (43-7), which was seeking its eighth state title in the past 16 seasons but instead suffered just its third loss in 10 state-final appearances.

"Obviously, it didn't go the way we would've liked it," Poth coach Patti Zenner said after her team lost despite outscoring White Oak 92-89. "Anybody who ends up on this end says the same thing. I'm proud that we kept fighting and going hard when we didn't play our best early."

The Pirettes' sluggish start evidently was their undoing. Poth committed 48 errors, but it was mostly the timing of those miscues that was the difference.

The most glaring came in Game 2, when Poth appeared to have shaken off a first-game setback to grab a 21-17 advantage. But White Oak outscored the Pirettes 8-2, capitalizing on five Poth errors.

"I think we made errors we shouldn't have made," said Tara Dunn, who had more hitting errors (nine) than kills (eight) and said she "definitely didn't have the best game of my life."

"We didn't play like we should've, I guess you can say. But we fought. It just didn't go how we wanted."

The Game 2 meltdown came on the heels of Poth struggling late in Game 1. The Pirettes had battled back from an eight-point deficit, closing within 20-19 on a kill from Avery Acker, who had 16 kills, 21 assists and 15 digs.

But the momentum was squashed as Poth sandwiched service errors around another Acker kill, eventually falling 25-21.

The Game 1 loss marked the first time Poth had dropped a frame in the playoffs since falling to Salado in the second round in 2008.

"We were definitely tense the first two games," Dunn said. "We were getting frustrated, and the more frustrated we got, the worse we played."

The Pirettes found a rhythm en route to winning Game 3. But the surge was short-lived as Poth fell behind by seven in Game 4. The Pirettes rallied within 23-21 on a kill from Kotara, who had 13 kills and five aces, but despite fighting off two match points eventually fell.

"I was thinking we weren't playing well, but we really needed to get through that low spot in our playing," Acker said. "We did in the third game, but then we fell back into that same pattern, and we couldn't get back out."