LISBON FALLS – Generous golfers give themselves a mulligan.

Figure skaters are forced to drop their highest and lowest scores, presumably to protect their sport from payola and prejudice.

Lisbon High School is stuck with Tuesday’s top of the sixth inning, a harrowing matter of record largely responsible for its 12-9 loss to Cape Elizabeth in a Western Class B baseball preliminary playoff.

No. 9 Cape (10-7) batted around in the loosest sense of the word, fashioning five runs on the strength of one, lonely base hit. Even that was a sun-aided pop that fell upon the chalk in shallow left field between the converging Lisbon triangle of Mike Unterkoefler, Kyle Neagle and Mat Hardison.

Four walks, a hit batsman and a fruitless fielder’s choice at the plate were the No. 8 Greyhounds’ bane.

“If I could throw out that God-blessed inning, I would,” said Lisbon coach Randy Ridley. “That one there, when things start going wrong, it always just keeps getting worse. No matter what sport it is, no matter what activity it is, that’s exactly what happens. When things start rolling bad, it goes down.”

Lisbon being Lisbon, the team that has made dramatic comebacks an art form in recent years, those fortunes shot in the other direction almost soon enough to save the season.

Down 12-5 in their half of the sixth, the Greyhounds (11-4) grabbed two runs back when winning pitcher Andrew Guay stabbed Tyler Brown’s hard shot to the hill but threw a potential inning-ending double play ball into center field.

Kyle Neagle’s fourth hit of the game, a two-run triple, brought the tying run close as the on-deck circle in the seventh. Guay coaxed Unterkoefler into a fly ball to Zach Breed in center to ice it.

Cape overcame its own share of highs and lows, most notably a runner’s interference call that left the bases loaded while Lisbon still led 5-4 in the top of the fourth.

“We talked all year long about playing in hostile environments or reacting when things don’t go our way,” said Cape coach Chris Hayward. “You can take a few minutes to fume over it, but then you’ve got to get past it, because it can’t undo itself.”

Guay (5-3) gutted out the complete-game win after allowing two runs in the first and three more in the second. He blanked Lisbon on one hit from the third through fifth frames, giving the Capers a chance to catch fire at the plate against Neagle and relievers Marcus Bubar and Frank Angelico.

Breed and Will Pierce each went 2-for-3 and combined for five RBIs. It was Breed drawing a bases-loaded walk on a 3-2 pitch, however, and Pierce taking one for the team off his batting helmet that fueled the sixth.

“We always say it’s just as important not to swing at a bad pitch as it is to swing at a good pitch,” Hayward said. “Kids buy into that a little at a time. Now we can talk about that tomorrow.”

Cape advances to a Thursday quarterfinal at No. 1 York, one of its rivals in the Western Maine Conference.

Brown and Neagle each knocked in a pair of runs for the Greyhounds. Angelico, a sophomore who has batted .500 in each of his first two varsity seasons, was 2-for-4 with an RBI. No. 9 hitter Hardison scored three runs.

Neagle, Unterkoefler, catcher Andy Ouellette and center fielder David Yaede each played their final game for Lisbon.

“As usual, this group of kids kept battling. They will not quit. They will not give up. That’s just in their nature,” Ridley said. “They got a little taste of it last year when they came back and won eight games (in their final at-bat). They wanted another one and just fell a little short today, that’s all.”