OLD ORCHARD BEACH – Windham looked like perhaps the best team in the American Legion baseball state tournament over the first two days. But on Saturday, it ran up against a team with better hitting, more pitching depth and on this day, a tighter defense.

The result was the way these things usually go. Pastime Club of Lewiston built a lead on Windham mistakes, then held it with Ryan Riordan’s superb relief pitching for a 7-3 victory in an elimination game at The Ballpark.

Pastime will play Post 51 at 1 p.m. Sunday, with the winner taking on First Title for the state title in the second game.

Eddie Emerson, who pitched Junior Legion ball this summer, started for Pastime but was lifted after giving up a leadoff single to Joe Francoeur in the fourth inning.

Riordan went the final six innings, striking out four, and Windham’s only hit off him was a ninth-inning leadoff single by MacGyver Poulin.

“Our timing has been off,” Windham Coach Nick Dubay said. “We’re in front of it, lunging, getting under the ball, popping it up. I don’t think too many guys struck out today, but (we’re) just hitting at people and not taking good at-bats. They’re just a better-hitting team than we are, and it showed.”

Windham started ace Cody Dube, going on two days’ rest after throwing seven innings Wednesday to beat Post 51. Dubay thought Dube threw well and as it turned out, many or even most of the seven runs against him were preventable.

In the bottom of the first, Joe Sullivan moved to second on a wild pitch, putting him in position to score on Mekae Hyde’s single. In the third, Luke Cote scored from second when Hyde beat out a double-play grounder. In the fifth, one run became two thanks to a pair of Windham errors.

“They made plays, we didn’t, and that’s what it boils down to,” Dubay said. “It (stinks) to go out like that but “

Windham used four walks and two errors to score three runs in the third. Windham still had the bases loaded with one out and a 3-1 lead but couldn’t score more.

In the seventh, trailing 5-3, Windham again left the bases loaded.