Amanda Rourke and Elaine Antonellis have spent a lot of time on bleachers together.

For the past eight years, as the moms of two of the now-seven seniors on the Watertown High girls’ basketball team, they have become well acquainted with the many venues the Raiders played at, from the middle school to Watertown High to gyms all over the Middlesex League to TD Garden to, finally, Springfield College.

Now, it’s over.

A group that first crossed paths competing against each other at the Boys & Girls Club in second grade — and first united on the same travel team three winters later — will graduate as perhaps the most accomplished class in the program’s century-long history.

Four trips to the North sectional final. Back-to-back state semifinals at the Garden. One state title game appearance, the team’s first ever. A 63-7 record in the past three years.

The parents will miss watching their daughters play. They probably won’t miss the bleachers.

“It’s tough on the back,’’ Rourke said with a laugh.

Added Antonellis: “I know they lost in the state championship, [but] I think I would’ve been crying either way. These girls, I’ll never see them play together again. I’ve had a few tears.’’

There are many entry points into the friendship and story of captains Michaela Antonellis, Katelyn Rourke, and Nicole Lanzo, plus classmates Felicia Korte, MacKenzie Hand, Amanda Cardoso, and Lillian Pennington, but a convenient one came in the summer of 2010.

Pat Ferdinand had just been hired as the Watertown High girls’ head coach, a position he still holds. The aforementioned seven were preparing for seventh grade. Warren Tolman — the attorney and politician who coached a travel team that also included his daughter, Katherine, who has since become a track and field standout — invited Ferdinand to a practice to meet his potential future varsity roster.

At the Waltham YMCA, the tweens were nervous and intimidated. They mostly didn’t know Ferdinand. They knew only that he would one day be their coach and boss. They wanted to make a good impression.

So Ferdinand ran some drills, the girls worked up a sweat. By the end, the coach gathered them around and told them they were good. Really good. He wanted them to think about and set the goal of one day winning a state championship.

“You say it, and you hope they’re driven and have that same vision in mind,’’ Ferdinand said. “To come so close was pretty special, and at the same time pretty tough.’’

Said Tolman, who continued to attend his former athletes’ games in recent years: “Pat, to his credit, saw they could be something special . . . Pat had that unique blend of basketball knowledge and personality to get the team to where it got.’’

The Raiders, of course, fell just short, losing the Division 2 state title game to Longmeadow, 36-31, last Saturday. In the immediate aftermath, through the tears and disappointment of a long, quiet bus ride back to town, it was difficult to accept. After the return home, with a welcoming committee complete with fire trucks and all, the way the town fetes the perennial champion field hockey team, it got a little easier.

“Of all the teams in Massachusetts, some people didn’t even get the opportunity to play in the tournament,’’ said Lanzo, who didn’t play in the final after tearing a anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in her knee, and meniscus in the semifinal. “To go to the North finals each of our four years? It’s absolutely amazing.’’

Watertown took a step forward in each of their four years, and this was another one.

In 2013, when this year’s seniors were freshmen who reserves off the bench if at all (except Rourke, who started), a 10-10 regular season preceded a run to the Division 3 North final.

A year later, after taking a step up to Division 2, the Raiders reached the North final again. A year after that, they won the sectional but lost in the state semis. Then this year, they won at the Garden to reach the season’s last game.

“Playing with them was so easy at the end,’’ Michaela Antonellis said. “We knew where people were going to cut. We would use our eyes to tell people were to go.’’

Katelyn Rourke took a big-picture perspective.

“Knowing we made it this far, imagining all the youth kids and what they’re going to think of us and knowing we made it that far and they can too,’’ she said, trailing off momentarily. “It’s so much greater than winning a state title.’’

?A recap of the 13 other local teams that played for state basketball and hockey titles. Page 6.

Tim Healey can be reached at timothy.healey@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @timbhealey.