With two outs and the tying run at the plate in the top of the seventh inning of Tuesday night’s Western Maine Class A championship against Deering, Westbrook had its No. 8 hitter due up, freshman Zach Collett. If he reached, Zach Gardiner, another freshman, was slated to bat.

Blue Blazes coach Mike Rutherford has developed a lot of faith in his young hitters over the season and saw no need to go to his bench for a more veteran bat.

“I really felt like one of the guys was going to hit a home run that last inning,” Rutherford said. “Collett and Gardiner, even though they’re freshmen, I really felt that they could connect with one and we’d go ahead. I believe in those guys.”

They nearly came through.

Collett reached on an error that allowed a run to score, but hard-throwing Deering reliever Taylor Candage struck out Gardiner for the final out to give the Rams a 3-2 win at Larry Mahaney Diamond at St. Joe’s College in Standish.

No. 1 Deering (19-0) remained unbeaten and will face Eastern Maine champion Brewer on Saturday as it looks to defend its state crown.

No. 3 Westbrook wrapped up the season at 14-5. While the Blue Blazes fell short of the ultimate prize, they exceeded all expectations. The team started only two seniors through most of the season, with three freshmen starting by season’s end.

“I didn’t (expect us to be here), but I expected us to be in the top four or five,” said Rutherford, in his first year as Westbrook coach. “With (Shawn) McAlpine and (Christian) Hamilton, they’re two of the best pitchers in the state. If there are five top pitchers, they’ve got to be two of them. I knew they’d keep us in games and wait for our young hitters and young fielders to develop. And they developed at the end of the year. I didn’t expect this at the beginning of the year, but if you asked me three weeks ago, yeah, I thought we were right behind Deering.”

Deering narrowly defeated Westbrook 3-2 during the regular season and 3-1 in the SMAA championship.

The Rams took a 3-0 lead on Tuesday before Westbrook clawed back with a run in the sixth and one in the seventh.

Deering’s Dan Brown singled with one out in the second, advanced to second on a wild pitch by Hamilton, then went to third on Brad Shafran’s infield hit. He scored the game’s first run when Westbrook failed to turn a double play on a grounder by Matt Powers.

“In that second inning, we gave them five outs,” Rutherford said. “You can’t do that against Deering High School. Luckily, they only scored one, because Christian Hamilton was pitching his tail off.”

Deering got another in the fourth as Marc Ouimet doubled to left on a fly ball that the Westbrook outfielder appeared to lose in the lights. Brown followed with a double to make it 2-0.

Jack Heary put the Rams up 3-0 when he homered to left to leadoff the bottom of the fifth inning.

Lance Ludka led off the six for Westbrook by beating out an infield hit and moving to second on the errant throw to first. He went to third on Matt Foye’s sacrifice fly to center and scored on Scott Heath’s groundout.

McAlpine started the seventh off with a single to left for the Blue Blazes. He advanced to third on two wild pitches by Candage, who struck out Tayler Clouatre and Tyler Kelly for the first two outs. Collett’s grounder to second took a funny hop on Heary and allowed McAlpine to score. Candage set down Gardiner on three pitches to end it.

Hamilton started and pitched 5 2/3 innings for Westbrook before giving way to Heath. Regan Flaherty, who missed the entire regular season with a knee injury, took the mound for the first time this season as the Deering starter. He was replaced by Candage, the Rams’ ace all year, after Clouatre doubled to center to lead off the fifth.

For Rutherford, facing Deering for the Western Maine title was a bit of deja vu. He coached Portland, the Rams’ archrival, for 12 years prior to coming to Westbrook.

“I think it’s a nice little rivalry,” he said. “It feels like I never left. I was in this game seven out of 12 times with Portland, four times against (Deering). Hopefully this Westbrook-Deering rivalry will continue for a few years.”

Westbrook will lose senior starters McAlpine and Clouatre, as well as reserves Zachary Johnson and Josh Harriman. The four served as captains this season.

The Blue Blazes earned a spot in the regional finals with a 9-3 semifinal win over No. 10 Gorham (11-8) on Saturday at Westbrook High School.

Foye put Westbrook up 3-0 in the third with a three-run double to the gap in left-center. After Gorham came back with a pair of runs in the top of the fourth, the Blue Blazes batted around in the bottom half and scored five more runs, keyed by a three-run double by Heath.

“I was thinking, put the ball in the outfield and hit it hard. That’s what happened,” said Heath, a freshman. “The first couple innings, we weren’t hitting the ball well. It was great to have a breakthrough like that. One hit was contagious.”

Westbrook scored again in the sixth. Gorham put its first three runners on in the seventh, but managed only a run, as McAlpine, the Westbrook starter, induced a double-play ball and got a grounder back to the mound to end it.