AUGUSTA — It was immediately apparent Bangor’s Curtis Worcester didn’t have his best stuff for Thursday’s state American Legion tournament game with Pastime Club.

Worcester kept his composure, though, and with his offense and, eventually, his defense picking him up, he found out getting hit doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.

Worcester settled down after a rocky first two innings to hold Pastime Club scoreless for the next five while his Bangor mates rode a big first inning of their own to a 9-5 win at Morton Field.

Bangor (25-3) faces Westbrook at 3:30 on Thursday in the final winner’s bracket game. Pastime (18-5) takes on Zone 3 rival Windham in an elimination game at 11 a.m. at Morton Field. It will be their first meeting since the controversial zone championship game which Pastime was awarded on a incorrect rules interpretation.

Worcester allowed four runs, just one of them earned, on four hits over the first two innings. Pastime had at least one base runner reach in each of his seven innings, collecting eight of its 11 hits off the southpaw. But he was able to keep them off the scoreboard by sticking with his fastball (eight strikeouts) and throwing strikes (one walk).

“I like to attack with my fastball. They hit it and I’ve just got to trust the guys to make the plays,” Worcester said. “Early on, I think everybody was a little jittery and anxious, but we settled right down.”

Bangor made a costly error in each of the first two innings but played flawless defense after that.

Worcester helped  his own cause with three hits, including a double. Sam Huston also had three hits for Bangor. Gage Cote and Mike Wong led Pastime with three hits apiece.

“(Worcester) did a nice job hitting his spots, especially in some key situations,” Pastime coach Dave Jordan said. “We had some opportunities, some guys in scoring position. We didn’t quite come up with enough big hits to score them. They got guys on and made some stuff happen.”

Luke Cote led off the game with a triple and scored on Alex Small’s single. Small made it 2-0 scoring on a bobble by the second baseman with two out.

The Comrades responded with five in the bottom of the frame off Pastime starter Ryan Riordan. RBI singles by Justin Courtney and Huston (3-for-5, three RBIs) an d a two-run double by Hunter Boyce made it 4-2. An errant throw on Kyle Stevenson’s infield hit scored Boyce for a 5-2 lead.

“That was huge,” Bangor coach David Morris said. “The last three games, we’ve kind of been in that situation. I think we’ve got to remind ourselves that’s not always going to happen. Any time you can get five runs in that first inning, you settle in a little bit and you’re feeling more comfortable.”

Pastime touched Worcester for two more unearned runs in the second, but that was as close as it would get. Worcester surrendered a pair of two-out singles to Wong and David Cusson in the fourth but got out of it with a strikeout of Cote, then got bailed out of a potential jam in the fifth on a fine diving stop by third baseman Carl Farnham.

“As we got going, my curve ball came around, so that was a big help,” Worcester said.

“We’ve rode his shoulders a lot in the last three or four days, pitching him Saturday (in a play-in game) and pitching him 120 pitches, and then four days off and to come in and expect a big-time performance… sometimes you’re not going to have your best stuff,” Morris said. “But I think he found a way to get something done and relied on his defense.”

Riordan appeared to settle down after his shaky start, retiring the side in the second and erasing a hit batter with a caught stealing in the third. But back-to-back walks to start the fourth came back to haunt him as Andrew Hillier and Huston ripped RBI singles to make it 8-4.

Briant Wigant shut down Bangor over the next three innings, but Pastime wasn’t able to chip away, leaving nine runners on base.

“They’re a great team. I thought we could have given them a better battle,”  Jordan said. “There were a few innings we took off, I thought.”

Pastime finally broke through again when Hillier relieved Worcester in the eighth as Wigant drove in Gage Cote with a single to make it 8-5 and bring the tying run to the plate. But Stevenson snagged a Luke Cote line drive to shortstop to curb that rally, and Bangor answered with a run of its own in the bottom of the frame on Worcester’s RBI single.

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