HOLDEN, Mass. – Colton Smith singled on a hard comebacker to the mound in the bottom of the seventh Thursday to give the Pittsfield Little League 12-year-old All-Stars a 3-2 win over Holden in the Section 1 Tournament.

 

The win propels Pittsfield to the final round of the four-team double-elimination tournament. It will be home on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Deming Park against the winner of Friday’s game between Holden and Westfield, a 16-0 winner over Quabbin on Thursday night in the losers’ bracket.

 

Pittsfield Thursday got seven strong innings on the mound from Carmelo Coco and Hector Reyes-Colon, who also hammered a solo home run in the top of the fourth to give his team a 2-1 lead at the time.

 

But Holden, which was down to its last strike in the top of the sixth, got an RBI single from Lukas Ojerholm to stay alive.

 

After Holden reliever Declan Wardwell stranded a runner at first in the bottom of the sixth, the teams went to extra innings, where Little League employs the “ghost runner,” starting each half inning with a runner on second base.

 

Smith came up huge behind the plate for Pittsfield in the top of the seventh, throwing out the ghost runner attempting to steal third for the first out of the inning.

 

Reyes-Colon then got a groundball to the mound for out No. 2 and a slow roller up the first base line to Brody Hamilton, who tagged out the batter to get Pittsfield back in the dugout.