Before tournament play began, the primary goal for the Nashua U14 Babe Ruth baseball team was to win districts after a heartbreaking finish in the district final last season. The team did more than just that, however, moving on to the state tournament, where they went 4-0 to advance to regionals in Winooski, Vt.

Although it was a promising run, Nashua’s season came to an end on Wednesday with a 9-2 loss to CMBR (Maine) with a trip to the regional final on the line.

“Maine was a more consistent hitting team and taxed our pitching,” manager John Gunter said. “In the end we were just mentally exhausted.”

CMBR appeared to be the stronger team, but not without a battle from Nashua, which left runners stranded on base in all but one inning.

“We would’ve liked to win (Wednesday) in order to say we made the championship round,” Gunter said. “We played well today, but bad things happened at bad times.

“There were no big mistakes, and the pitching and defense was good, things just went well for the other team.”

Spencer Bergeron continued his strong hitting with a pair of singles, and Mike Habibi chipped in with a key double to left-center, but it wasn’t enough in the end.

“Despite our success, the one thing that stands out to me is the missed potential,” Gunter said. We had such good players that did what they needed to do, but that extra offensive result could not come.”

Considering the immediate goal was to reach states, Nashua has little to feel disappointed about.

It may have been uncharted territory, but they took it one game at a time and rose to the gradually improving level of competition, according to Gunter.

An undefeated record in states couldn’t have been capped off much better with a 5-4 walk-off win over Keene in eight innings.

Standing out at the plate in states was D.J. McCourt and Chris Cruz, who each hit key home runs to lead the way for Nashua.

As Bergeron was establishing himself as a consistent hitter throughout the run, Mike Kernan struggled in states. However, Kernan used his big bat in regionals to pace the offensive, especially in winning efforts over Suburban (9-3) and Leominster (11-8).

“I’m definitely happy about the way we played,” Gunter said. “We were glad to be here.”