LIVERMORE FALLS – The action during Wednesday’s second half flowed primarily one way, almost as assertively as the waters of the Androscoggin River whooshed below the Livermore Falls Recreation soccer field.

No. 4 Livermore Falls High School’s frequent offensive flurries were heavier, with more staying power, than the snow spitting from the foreboding sky from start to finish.

Still, the end for the Andies’ was cold and abrupt as the December-like temperatures. Livermore Falls couldn’t counter Ketch Cowan’s goal off a corner kick with 10 minutes remaining in the first half, and No. 5 Georges Valley Buccaneers buttressed their decades of tradition in the Western Class C boys’ tournament with a 1-0 win.

“I don’t think you could dominate a half more than that,” said Livermore Falls coach Larry Thornton, whose Andies finished 9-5-1 after falling in the quarterfinals for the third straight season. “We just couldn’t finish.”

Georges Valley (9-4-2) continues its chase of the ninth state championship in school history, meeting the Mt. Abram-Traip survivor in Saturday’s semifinals.

James McLamb missed knotting the game by the width of an imaginary pane of glass dangling from the Georges Valley goal.

The junior appeared to have both Georges Valley goalie Alec Young and defender Blake Miller beaten with his redirection bid. Miller somehow reversed his footsteps on the weather-beaten turf and rifled the ball 40 yards out of bounds and out of harm’s way.

“Oh, man, that was a big mess-up on my part. I was scared. I was lucky I got to it,” Miller said of his game-saver with 14 minutes to go. “It was close. It was barely on this side of the line.”

Miller wound up with his body draped around the left post and sent his goalie into a fit of nervous laughter.

“He ran into the pole and got his foot on it,” Young said. “It was a great play. We were having a little laugh afterwards because it was so close. That would have been pretty bad.”

Buccaneers’ backs Miller, Dean Cline and Ryan Hank and Young spent the second half under siege. Livermore Falls enjoyed a 16-5 advantage in shots on goal after intermission and 26-11 for the game, using Kent Jackman and Khyle Whittemore’s speed to the corner and creating numerous, agonizingly close looks for McLamb and Whittemore.

Young finished with a dozen saves, a total that doesn’t factor in the half-dozen times that the Andies sent a short-range shot soaring a foot or less north of the crossbar.

Cowan, a double-digit goal scorer during the regular season, gave the Buccaneers the luxury of nursing a lead by applying the exclamation point to a rare dead-ball opportunity.

A sea of green-and-white uniforms from both sides collapsed upon Chris Wilgus’ boot from the left corner. Cowan pounced when the ball squirted free at the goalmouth.

“It just kind of popped out,” said Cowan, who credited Livermore Falls’ aggressive and hungry play for the second-half reversal. “We came into the second half wanting to play like we were down, because we played well and we wanted to keep that up.”

Two straight playoff losses to Traip left Livermore Falls eager to see a Mountain Valley Conference rival in the tournament, even though it meant a rematch of a game the Andies lost 3-0 in Thomaston.

“We were glad to get them here and try it one more time. One thing about Georges Valley is they have playoff experience. As much as they might have struggled toward the end of the year, they’re a playoff team,” Thornton said. “They’ve been here many, many, many years, and we haven’t.”

Co-captains Jackman and Jake Ouellette are two of five Livermore seniors who played their final game Wednesday.

“My juniors have never seen anything different. These are my last two senior captains that saw the crap and the bad years before,” said Thornton. “This is three years in a row. We’re making a statement now that every year, we’re going to be in this thing.”