YOKOHAMA, Japan — They marched single file onto the podium near shortstop with the blank expressions of the condemned. When silver medals were handed out, they dangled them around each other’s necks like weights.

Eyes were red and damp. Perfunctory waves for the cameras were managed. Hands fidgeted with bouquets of sunflowers. Stunned, yes. Heartbroken, yes. Most precisely: devastated.

“It stings,” Cat Osterman said more than two hours later. “I’ve never been on a team that had so much fight.”

Just not enough.

Japan won its second straight Olympic softball gold medal, beating the United States 2-0 Tuesday night behind 39-year-old pitcher Yukiko Ueno (2-0) in an emotional repeat of the 2008 victory in Beijing.

For Osterman and Monica Abbott, it was just like 4,723 days earlier — only worse. This likely was their final moment on their sport’s grandest stage, which the International Olympic Committee has snatched away until at least 2028.

“I challenge the IOC to instate softball as a women’s sport into the Olympic docket on a regular basis,” said Abbott, who pitched a night before her 36th birthday. “It’s been proven that we attract viewers, we’re active on social media. It’s a worldwide sport. It’s played really well in multiple continents and areas of the world, and I think it’s really difficult when you’re in an Olympics and then out of an Olympics, you’re in one and you’re out of one, to continue to build that momentum and engagement for this sport to grow worldwide.”

Ueno took a one-hitter into the sixth inning, five days after her 39th birthday, and Japan snuffed out an American rally attempt with an acrobatic sixth-inning double play that will long be replayed.

Japan led 2-0 when Michelle Moultrie singled leading off the sixth, and hard-throwing 20-year-old left-hander Miu Goto relieved. Goto dealt Haylie McCleney, the top American hitter at .529, her first strikeout of the Olympics with a 69 mph pitch at the hands, then allowed a single to Janie Reed.

Amanda Chidester lined a rocket to third that seemed likely to drive in a run and leave two on. The ball smacked the left wrist of third baseman Yu Yamamoto and ricocheted to perfectly positioned shortstop Mana Atsumi. She stuck out her glove for a backhand spear, then made a Derek Jeter-like jump throw to second baseman Yuka Ichiguchi to double up Moultrie.

There have been other 5-6-4 double plays. But off the wrist?

“It hits you in the gut,” Osterman said. “If that goes through, we probably tie the game, maybe even go up with just the amount of momentum we would have on that alone.”

On a night of a half-dozen web gems, Reed made a leaping catch at the left-field wall to rob Yamato Fujita of a two-run homer in the bottom half.

With Goto overthrowing and her pitches flattening, Japan coach Reika Utsugi had Ueno re-enter for the seventh, and she retired the Americans, setting off a celebration on the field surrounded by 34,046 mostly empty seats in Yokohama Stadium.

“In your home country, you want to put the pitching legend back on the mound to finish the game for you,” U.S. coach Ken Eriksen said. “And I thought it was a class act.”

American batters sputtered as they did throughout the Olympics, totaling just nine runs while hitting .216 with four extra-base hits and a .590 OPS. That lack of offense was the reason they watched 15 smiling and bowing Japanese players clutch their gleaming gold medals, gazing at the prizes and holding them up in pride. Japan’s flag was raised on the center pole and “Kimigayo,” the Japanese national anthem, was played.

“It was bad luck,” Eriksen said. “Tonight just was not our night.”

They thought back to the year delay caused by the pandemic, of not having a team staff from January to June in 2020.

“I’m proud of the tournament that we put on,” Abbott said, “and the involvement, engagement and the drama and the excitement that USA softball was able to show to the world on the Olympic stage.”

Canada defeated Mexico earlier Tuesday to take the bronze medal.