FARMINGTON — This wasn’t a pitchers’ duel by the classic definition.

Well, there was conflict. The five guys who climbed the bump Tuesday afternoon for Cony and Mt. Blue battled themselves and the terrain as much as the foe standing 60 feet, six inches away at Hippach Field.

Twelve walks, four hit batsmen, four wild pitches, a dropped third strike and a nasty gash to the head all contributed to a seven-inning baseball game pushing the three-hour threshold.

Cony took early advantage of the wildness and survived its own bout in the late innings to score a 2-1 victory in the KVAC regular-season finale.

Four of the Rams’ first five batters walked in the first inning. Corey Lapierre’s bases-loaded base on balls was the last, chasing previously undefeated Cougars starter Blake Hart.

“We were looking fastball,” said Zach Lachance, whose walk followed free passes to Luke Duncklee and Ryan Edwards. “(Hart) threw a lot of fastballs in the dirt, and we took advantage of it.”

Nick Lucas’ single greeted reliever Cam Abbott to make it 2-0, and the lead stood up through six innings of gritty work by Lachance.

Lachance struck out Abbott to strand the potential tying run at third base in the sixth.

“He’s thrown well for us all season. He struggled a little bit with that ant hill out there they call a mound,” Cony coach Don Plourde said. “He started pitching. After the third inning, he started to get his curve ball down. He’s been our ace all season.”

Duncklee took over in the seventh and issued a one-out walk to Dylan Vining, who stole second and raced to third on a wild pitch.

Working with a drawn-in infield, Duncklee drew a ground ball to second baseman Edwards to get a huge second out and prevent Vining from heading home.

He caught Andrew Pratt looking at a curve on the lower outside corner for strike three to nail down the save.

“We had our chances,” Mt. Blue coach Dan Stefanilo said. “Of course we’re upset that we lost. But we battled back, and that’s what this team is all about.”

Cony’s win likely broke up the possibility of an immediate rematch in next week’s Eastern Class A quarterfinals.

The Rams (8-8) unofficially leapfrogged Edward Little and Brunswick to No. 4 in Heal Points. Cony has beaten two of top three teams in Lewiston and No. 3 Mt. Blue (11-5).

“It was probably the most important game of the year,” Lachance said.

Both teams left nine runners on base in the playoff atmosphere.

Abbott struck out Chandler Shostak and Simon Yorks to escape the first-inning jam. He hit a shallow line drive to Bradley Jackson in right field and another liner to Clint Lowe at second to leave three Rams aboard in the third.

“We had our opportunities in the first three innings and couldn’t come up with the big hit,” Plourde said. “They battled. Every time we had a couple guys on to start the inning, their pitchers threw some good pitches and got them out of it.”

Abbott retired seven straight in one stretch. He later gave way to Vining, who required a five-minute delay and a trainer’s patch-up job a scary collision with Hart along the first-base line in the seventh.

Undaunted, Vining struck out Lachance and got Lapierre to ground into a double play.

“We could have laid down after walking four guys in the first inning, and we decided that we were going to help Blake out and pick him up,” Stefanilo said.

Lachance (six strikeouts) carried a 2-0 lead into the sixth. He hit Jackson to start the inning and later plunked Hart for the second time.

Jackson took third and home on a pair of wild pitches, with Hart following in his tracks. But strikeouts of Matt Crowley and Abbott slammed the door.

“It was very loose, the sand,” Lachance said of the mound. “Very deep too, so it was tough to throw off. But some of (the wildness) was probably mental.”

Mt. Blue, which has dropped two of three after a seven-game winning streak, also put two men on against Lachance in the second, fourth and fifth frames.

“There’s no game in the season that we haven’t been in for the whole seven,’ Stefanilo said. “Stuff like this I think is going to be good for us. Being down a run in the seventh inning and getting a baserunner on and seeing that anything can happen. We’ll be back here next week no matter what, so regardless of what happened today I wanted to leave everything on the field.”

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