Nashua Coffey Post reliever Zack Lussier, center, gets congratulated by starting and winning pitcher Charlie Hale (24) and first baseman Isaiah Hedqust after he closes out the team's 5-1 Northeast Regionals win over West Hartford, Conn. in Worcester on Thursday. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

WORCESTER, Mass. — They’re still alive.

The Nashua James E.Coffey Post #3 Senior American Legion baseball team downed West Hartford (Conn.) 5-1 in an elimination game in Thursday’s Northeast Regionals at Holy Cross College’s Fitton Field.

The win keeps Nashua fighting its way out of the losers bracket. Due to weather concerns, Friday’s originally scheduled 4:30 p.m. Coffey game against the loser of Thursday’s late game between Rhode Island and Vermont will now be played Friday at sometime between 11 a.m. and noon, following the 9 a.m. contest. Nashua gets Vermont, which fell 4-3 to Cumberland, R.I.

Nashua got a solid pitching performance from recent Hollis Brookline grad Charlie Hale, who allowed a run in the first inning and tossed five more innings of shutout ball, striking out eight. He was relieved with two on and nobody out in the bottom of the seventh by former Cavalier teammate Zack Lussier, who shut the door for the save.

Nashua managed seven hits (six singles) and took advantage of two defensive miscues in a three-run third inning. Down 1-0, Coffey got a one-out single by Travis LaFontaine, followed by a bunt single by Luke Anderson. Derek Finlay’s hard grounder went under the glove of West Hartford third baseman James Berry to score the tying run. Anderson and Finlay scored on West Hartford shortstop Myles Fournier’s throwing error on a tough-play grounder off the bat of Jackson Goldstein, making it 3-1.

Jordan Delude’s RBI single made it 4-1 in the fifth and Anderson added an RBI double in the seventh. In the bottom half Lussier got a 4-6-3 double play and fly out to end things, eliminating West Hartford and keeping the Coffey Kids alive for at least another day.