With two teams struggling to find the finishing touch, perhaps it was fitting that the game’s only goal was scored by a defender.

Cheverus High’s Andrei Vile headed in a well-placed chip by Derek Hammond with less than a minute remaining in the first half and the seventh-seeded Stags (7-4-4) made it stand up, beating No. 10 Portland 1-0 in a Western Class A preliminary game Saturday at Deering.

“On set pieces we try to get all of our defenders up. This time it just went in,” Vile said of the play, which came on an indirect kick. “It was a beautiful ball by Derek. He hit it perfectly. We’ve been doing this set piece for a long time and finally it came together.”

Cheverus advances to play No. 2 Falmouth (11-1-2) in the regional quarterfinals Tuesday.

Cheverus and Portland (6-7-2) played to a scoreless tie on Oct. 11. Both teams have struggled to score all season.

“I told my kids (Friday) in practice, one goal is going to decide a lot of these games and we have to focus on set pieces,” Cheverus Coach Colin Minte said.

Cheverus got its opportunity after Brady Levesque was shaken up with a minute remaining in the half. As trainers checked on Levesque (he played in the second half) the Stags had a few extra minutes to make their plan.

The Bulldogs controlled more of the play, particularly in the first half. Their chances were negated by a combination of errant long-range shots, sound defensive play by Cheverus, and Stags keeper Jake Tomkinson (seven saves) repeatedly snatching crosses and high shots.

“He didn’t make a ton of point-blank saves necessarily but I thought he controlled his box and handled the crosses extremely well,” Minte said.

The best example came with less than six minutes left in the first half. Portland’s Brady Cyr made a strong run up the left side and sent a cross into the box. Tomkinson dove to his left and cleanly caught the ball making a great run to the far post by Haron Habibzai moot.

“I think (Portland) had another guy there, too,” Minte said. “That would have been a sure goal if that had gotten through.”

“We possessed, we found space, we just couldn’t do what we needed to do to get that one over the top to equalize it and that was it,” Portland Coach Rocco Frenzilli said. “That is our story. It’s been the story of us all season. The games that we’ve been in, we’ve done just what we did today. We’ve played box-to-box with everyone. We just can’t finish.”

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