BANGOR, Maine — As many times as the Senior League World Series team from Hilo, Hawai'i, had rallied during pool play of this week's tournament, the U.S. West representative couldn't mount a comeback when it counted.

The Latin America team from Falcon, Venezuela, scored a run in the top of the ninth inning of yesterday's semifinal at Mansfield Stadium and then held off Hilo for a 5-4 victory and a berth in today's championship game in the tournament for 14- to 16-year-olds.

"We're going home as state champs, regional champs, fourth in the world," Hilo manager Kaha Wong said. "That's not too bad. But we really wanted to be there tomorrow."

Venezuela, the defending World Series champion, will play the U.S. South team from Cartersville, Ga., today. Cartersville beat U.S. Southwest representative Tyler, Texas, 4-1 in the other semifinal.

Jose Gonzalez was responsible for the game-winning run with a double to center that scored Marcos Pina from first base.

Gonzalez hit the 2-1 pitch to deep center — he tried for third but was thrown out there — after a Venezuela batter picked up the second out on an interference call.

After recording the winning hit, Gonzalez, a relief pitcher, wrapped up the win for Venezuela when he retired the top of the Hilo lineup. He induced a popup to center and got a strikeout for two quick outs, but still had to face the dangerous Kolten Wong, who showed a lot of power in pool play.

And if Wong got on, Gonzalez would have to face No. 4 batter Blake Amaral, who had homered to left-center in the third."I already knew there was no way I was going to give him anything good to hit right now," Gonzalez said. "I just gave him a fastball under his arm so he wouldn't be able to extend, so I (could) jam him."

It worked, and Wong flied out for the third time in the game. He ended up 0 for 4 with a walk.

"They got him today," said Kaha Wong, Kolten's father. "Maybe he wasn't on the ball as quick as he usually is."

Starter Amaral pitched well early but both he and the Hilo defense faltered in the fifth inning as Venezuela scored two unearned runs to tie the game at 2-2. Venezuela had three infield hits in the inning and Hilo had an error.

"The breaks just didn't fall for us today," Kaha Wong said. "One fielding mistake changed this game, made our pitch count go up higher, and we ended up losing Blake (to the pitch count)."

The game was knotted through seven innings until the top of the eighth. Venezuela's Luis Lugo had an RBI single to break the tie and pinch-runner Erickson Primera eventually scored on a wild pitch.

But Hilo came back and tied it in the bottom of the eighth when Keaka Pilayo hit an RBI double and Geonah Ragual had an RBI single, all with one out.

Hilo, which stranded eight baserunners, couldn't push across another run in the inning.

Kaha Wong wasn't pleased with his team's base running and batting mistakes in the first inning. Hilo already had scored a run and had runners on first and third with one out when a batter popped out, forcing the baserunner at third to scamper back to the base.

"That was supposed to be a squeeze and (the batter) missed the sign," Wong said. "That would have scored us another run. And there was another one, (on) a steal sign (where a baserunner) didn't go and that screwed us up, too. We lost on mistakes. We beat ourselves."