Tiernan Lynch admitted Larne were left "shellshocked" as their Irish Cup dreams came crashing down around them on Friday evening.
The league leaders, who were eyeing a historic Treble for the club, failed to rise to the occasion and Ballymena United took full advantage thanks to second half goals from Craig Farquhar and Dougie Wilson.
In truth it was nothing more than the Sky Blues deserved as they made it to back-to-back finals, much to Lynch's disappointment.
Read next: David Jeffrey points to special motivation as Ballymena United show team effort
“I’m hugely disappointed with the result, we weren’t ourselves," he said.
“We played well in the first 25 minutes. We popped it around well and we looked up for the challenge.
“After that, we lacked any real cutting edge. We barely had a shot on goal, which is very unlike us.
“We’re shellshocked as that performance was so unlike us. But we have to move on from it quickly.
“I’ll give the boys a couple of days off now because they now they underperformed.
“They’re hurting because they know they missed a great opportunity to play in a cup final.
"We’ve just got to take it on the chin and use it as motivation for the rest of the season.”
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