TURNER – Cole Farms has one of the youngest teams in American Legion Zone III and played like it for much of the season. Nowhere was its youth and inexperience more evident than in one-run games, where the margin for error is the smallest.

Now Cole Farms is winning the close ones, as it did in Monday’s regular season finale, a 3-2 victory in 10 innings over Andy Valley.

Devin Gill’s two-out single drove in Louie Bernardini with the game-winner off reliever Brandon Elie. Without the run, Cole Farms would have had to settle for a tie at best, as darkness would have suspended play after the 10th.

With the win, Cole Farms, which has won five of its last six, finishes the season at 9-12 after a 1-7 start. They will face Bessey Motors, the second seed, in South Paris Friday.

“It’s a great win. The guys battled hard,” said Cole Farms coach Tony Bernardini. “We came through some adversity in this game.”

“We just didn’t get it done. (Tim DeLuca) pitched a good game,” said Andy Valley coach Jeff Gilbert.

DeLuca settled down after a rough second inning when he surrendered three doubles, including run-scoring two-baggers by Dustin Gilbert and Chris Brewer that gave Andy Valley a 2-0 lead. He allowed just four baserunners the rest of the way, fanning six and not walking a batter.

“He said his arm was sore but we had to go with him. We didn’t have anybody else. He just had to keep mixing it up and keep them off balance and he did it,” Bernardini said.

Cole Farms tied it in the fifth, stroking fourth straight singles off Andy Valley starter Chris Brewer. DeLuca and Bernardini collected two-out RBIs, but they lost the chance at a bigger inning when two runners were cut down on the basepaths, one on a missed suicide squeeze.

Andy Valley relievers Jamey Brewer and Scott Wetherell worked out of several jams as Cole Farms put runners on base in every inning but couldn’t get them across. They left 11 on for the game. Andy Valley left seven.

Andy Valley finishes at 11-10 will host Smith-Tobey Friday.

Gayton will host Poland in the other first-round game. Regular-season champion Locke Mills earned a first-round bye.