SOUTH PARIS – Shane Slicer’s faith in his first baseman’s speed only goes so far.

Steve Cummings was fast enough, however, to beat out a routine grounder to second with two outs in the bottom of the sixth and allow Corey Tielinen to score what proved to be the winning run in a 4-3 thriller over Gardiner in the Eastern Class A quarterfinals Thursday at Gouin Complex.

After the senior beat second baseman Kusuki Kasaki’s throw to first by about a half a step, Slicer sent in a pinch runner for Cummings, who was given a hero’s welcome by his teammates when he returned to the dugout.

“Steve obviously got out of the bucket and has better wheels than I thought he did,” Slicer said. “He’s come through in a couple of games for us.”

“I just had to run as fast as I could to get there. I knew the grass was slow, and he didn’t play it as well as he could,” Cummings said.

The second-seeded Vikings (14-3) host No. 3 Brewer Saturday in the semifinals.

It was the second time seventh-seeded Gardiner (11-7) had lost in this year’s postseason, but the Tigers got a reprieve when Brunswick, which beat them 4-3 in the preliminaries, had to forfeit for using an ineligible player.

“Like I told the guys today, it was a free day of baseball,” said Gardiner coach Jim Palmer. “We had nothing to lose.”

And Palmer’s Tigers played like the looser team in the early going. Stefan Black’s RBI double in the first staked starter Mike Burdin to a quick 1-0 lead. Working quickly and getting ahead in the count consistently, Burdin breezed through the first three innings, allowing just one hit. Poor defense helped disrupt Burden’s rhythm in the fourth, however, as Oxford Hills grabbed a 3-1 lead. After Kyle Keniston led off with a walk, Matt McDonnell ripped a 2-2 offering to left center for a double to score Kenisten.

McDonnell then broke for third as the throw in from the outfield missed the cutoff and rolled between home plate and the mound. Black’s throw to third was wild, allowing McDonnell to score. A Tielinen walk, a Chris Henderson single and a throwing error by Burden on a bunt sent Tielinen home with the third run, but the Vikings missed a golden opportunity to make the lead more comfortable.

“I was worried in that inning because we left guys on second and third with no outs and they got out of it,” Slicer said. “Thinking back, I probably should have put something on in that situation, but I had the confidence that we’d get the runs in. It could have come back and bit us on the butt.”

It looked like it might when Gardiner tied it in the sixth when Tielinen lost his command, yielding two hits, two wild pitches and two walks, including a free pass to Kasaki with the bases loaded to tie the game.

“Tielinen obviously didn’t have his good stuff, but he kept battling and that kept us in the game,” said Slicer, whose team didn’t learn it was facing Gardiner instead of Brunswick until Wednesday.

“I really didn’t feel comfortable on the mound today,” Tielinen said. “With all the rain that we’ve had, they put a lot of clay back into the mound and me cleats kept getting all muddy. I never landed in the same spot twice. I was all over the place.”

The senior felt comfortable at the plate, though, leading off the seventh with a double. Henderson’s sacrifice fly moved Tielinen to third, but when Kelvin DeCato hit a fly to center that was too shallow to allow him to tag up, it looked like he might be stranded there. A hustling Cummings made sure he wasn’t three pitches later.