ANDERSON, Ind. — Usually, after a loss, the home team’s fans can’t get out of the ballpark fast enough.

Nobody wanted to leave Don Brandon Field on Friday, however.

Anderson University’s 2010 baseball season ended with a 13-10 loss to Franklin in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament. And Brandon’s 38-year coaching career ended with it.

After the game, Brandon corralled his team behind a hill just beyond left field. There was much emotion on both sides during his lengthy private speech to his team, and nearly all the Ravens’ fans gathered just out of earshot to wait through it all.

When Brandon was finished, the team broke the huddle with one final cheer.

Then they all received a long, loud ovation from their supporters.

“I think it’s a testament to everybody’s respect for him and the impact he’s had on the lives of these young men,” AU athletic director Marcie Taylor said as she watched the waiting the crowd. “Not just this team, but over all the years he’s been here. There’s a deep level of respect and sadness it’s all over.”

It ended far sooner than expected.

The Ravens (26-16) won their final seven regular-season games to clinch the HCAC title and the right to host this postseason event. They were 13-1 at home during the regular season and 14-2 overall with a healthy Cody Young in the lineup.

But a 15-13 loss to Rose-Hulman on Thursday dropped Anderson into the losers’ bracket. They then needed four consecutive wins to claim their first    conference tournament title since 2003.

They wouldn’t get one.

“It was a great year,” Brandon said. “I just wish we could go a little further.”

For awhile against the Grizzlies (26-14), it looked as though the Ravens would go further.

AU launched four home runs, including two by Young, to take an 8-2 lead after three innings. Then the wheels began to come off.

Franklin scored three times against Ravens starter Kyle Dillon in the fourth and three more off reliever Tyler Watson to tie the game in the fifth.

Meanwhile, Grizzlies reliever Nathan Ellis found a way to shut down the Ravens’ high-powered offense. Anderson led NCAA Division III with a .395 batting average this season and set a school record with 77 home runs. But Ellis retired 16 of the 20 batters he faced after entering the game with one out and a runner on second in the third inning.

“In a dogfight like that, he came in and slowed our offense down again,” Brandon said, “enough for them to get the win.”

Much of the Ravens’ wounds in the field were self-inflicted. Anderson pitchers walked eight batters and hit two more, giving the Grizzlies nearly as many free passes (10) as hits (14). The Ravens also committed three errors that contributed to three very costly unearned runs.

Franklin took the lead with two runs in the seventh, aided by a lead-off walk and an error. The Grizzlies extended their lead to 11-8 after a lead-off double by Matt Zmich in the eighth.

Anderson had one outstanding chance to get back into the game in the bottom of the inning.

Drew Kidd was hit by a pitch with one out, and Ellis was pulled from the game. His replacement, Cody Nees, promptly walked Brady Roundtree to bring Young to the plate as the tying run.

He hit a shot down the third-base line that Alex Boone dove for to save extra bases. Boone’s throw to first was wild, however, allowing Kidd to score and advancing Young and Roundtree to second and third base, respectively. Jeremy Hazen was called out on strikes before a balk against Nees made it a one-run game.

Chris Jarrett laced a ball just foul down the right-field line that would have scored Young and tied the game before being called out on a pitch on the outside corner.

Franklin added two runs in the top of the ninth, with the aide of an AU error, to put the game away.

“This was a great year, and I’m very happy for these guys,” Brandon said. “They’re a super bunch of young men. I know they’re coming to come back next year and be just as strong.”

Young went 3-for-5 with two homers to lead the offense. Garrett Stone was 2-for-5 with a homer and two RBIs, and Michael Tucker also homered and drove in two. Brett Detty was the only other Raven with more than one hit, going 2-for-5.

Brandon had special praise for his six seniors -- Young, Hazen, Jarrett, Aaron Vogel, Matt Reese and Brad Schnepp.

“I feel for our seniors,” he said. “They couldn’t be any better as young men and as players.”

As the postgame speech wound down, Steve Risinger -- Anderson’s longtime trainer and one of Brandon’s best friends -- looked on from a golf cart. Risinger’s been with Brandon for each of the coach’s 38 seasons at AU. He knows Brandon will move to a house just across the pond beyond the outfield fence, and he expresses confidence in incoming coach David Pressley.

But an era has ended, and Brandon’s loss will be felt.

“It’s been a great ride for me with him,” Risinger said. “We’ve been through the thick and thin, the good times and the bad times in baseball. I hate to see him leave, really. But all good things have to come to an end.”