Torquay United's promotion dreams were ended at the final hurdle at Plainmoor as they went down to a second leg defeat against Cheltenham Town in the League Two Play-Offs.
Eunan O'Kane and Mark Ellis both forced saves from Robins' keeper Scott Brown in the opening 45 minutes and Kevin Nicholson rattled the woodwork just before the half-time break.
On 74 minutes, Jermaine McGlashan extended the Robins' aggregate lead to three goals when he slotted home following good work from former Gulls' loanee Kaid Mohammed.
Torquay gained some reward for their efforts on 85 minutes when substitute Taiwo Atieno headed home a corner from O'Kane.
However, Cheltenham restored their aggregate advantage to three, two minutes later, when Marlon Pack struck with a wonder strike from a free-kick, which Gulls' keeper Bobby Olejnik was helpless to prevent finding the back of the net, to seal their place in the final against Crewe Alexandra.
However, Martin Ling stated that he was proud of his players and believes that they can keep on over-achieving and outperforming the division's better resourced teams.
"I've been really proud of the players, they've done wonders this season, but we've not pulled off what we wanted to do. " said Ling.
"We've over-achieved in the last two years.
"Let's be fair, Paul Buckle over-achieved last year by coming seventh and getting to the final, and we've over-achieved this year by being fifth and being knocked out in the semi-finals.
"Can you keep over-achieving? Of course you can, we go into next year knowing we're not going to be one of the big spenders, we know the people coming into the league are going to have money.
"But we were expected to be mid-table and below this year and we proved them wrong and I quite like proving people wrong so I hope we can do it again."
