OLD ORCHARD BEACH — They were patient. Just not patient enough.

Gayton Post 31 worked Norwalk, Conn. starter Leon Flemming for seven walks, but couldn’t take advantage and fell, 7-2, in the first round of the American Legion Northeast Regional tournament at The Ballpark on Thursday.

Gayton (26-2) will have to beat Whitestown, NY in Friday’s losers’ bracket game (9:30 a.m.) to stay alive in the double-elimination tournament.

“We’re an offensively-based team, and we didn’t score enough runs today, unfortunately,” Gayton coach Todd Cifelli said. “I’m not pleased with the approach that we took at the plate. I think that we kind of felt through our swings as opposed to zoning a pitch and thinking each pitch you’re going to hit it. You can’t get away with that in a Northeast regional against a team that catches the ball in a big park like this.”

Flemming minimized any damage his wildness could have caused by yielding just four hits and striking out three in seven innings. Gayton stranded nine baserunners.

“I just tried to get ahead with every pitch, throw strikes, and when worse came to worse, leave it to my defense,” Flemming said. “Even if I don’t have my best stuff, I know I have my defense behind me.”

By rule, Connecticut Legion teams can only swing wood bats, so Norwalk celebrated its first official foray into aluminum with a dozen hits, led by three apiece by Spencer Jacoby and Kevin Lawrence.

“It was weird,” Flemming said. “Some of us went back to wood. We just go by what’s comfortable for us.”

“We had a couple of days of practice with the metal just to let them get used to having it in their hands, but they have the right mentality at the plate,” Norwalk coach Chris Brown said. “They know they aren’t home run hitters. We’re gap hitters, line-drive hitters, and run the bases hard.”

Norwalk (27-8) collected just one extra base hit off Gayton pitching but found the holes with hard line drives and soft dribblers through the infield.

Jacoby’s RBI single put Norwalk on the board first in the third. Norwalk doubled its lead in the fourth with a leadoff single, walk, sacrifice bunt and ground out to second that scored the second run.

Gayton’s small ball efforts weren’t as successful. Jeff Keene drew a leadoff walk but was gunned down trying to steal by Kevin Daniele in the second. Another leadoff walk in the fourth went for naught after Flemming pounced on Luke Cote’s sacrifice bunt attempt and threw the runner out at second.

“A big tone-setter early in the game was we didn’t execute our small ball stuff,” Cifelli said. “That’s a big part of our game. We tried to attack and we couldn’t.”

An errant throw from short by Alex Parker set the tone for Norwalk’s three-run sixth. Flemming belted an RBI double and Lukas LaBry and Matt Ederle punched run-scoring singles to make it 5-0 off Gayton starter Joe Sullivan (6 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 2 HBP).

“I thought Joe did a good job. Norwalk had some timely hits,” Cifelli said. “They hit a couple 0-2, 1-2 pitches that Joe probably wished he had back, but I thought he competed on the mound. We needed to score more runs for him.”

Gayton finally got on the board in the sixth. With one out, Flemming issued back-to-back walks, and Scott Ouellette singled to drive in Mekae Hyde. But Flemming cut off the rally by getting Keene to pop up and Sullivan to ground out.

“If you compare his last start to this start, it’s a lot different. But the one thing consistent with Leon is his mentality on the mound,” Brown said. “It’s not about the last pitch but the next pitch. You can’t get down on yourself. If you don’t have your stuff, you have to battle.”

A wild pitch and an RBI single off Gayton relievers Matt Bowen and Parker made it 7-1. Hyde scored an unearned run for Gayton in the eighth, but that was as close as Post 31 would get against Norwalk’s James Welch, who threw two innings of one-hit relief.