PORTLAND – The Brewer Falcons were the best of the rest, but undefeated Andrews Post of Portland was the class of the 2006 state American Legion baseball tournament.

Andrews ended Brewer’s hopes of winning the program’s first state title since 1997 with an 8-3 victory over the Falcons in the championship game Wednesday at Hadlock Field.

Andrews (27-0) finished 5-0 in state tournament play while winning its second straight state championship and 12th title overall. Brewer (26-5) went 3-2 – with both losses in the double-elimination event coming to the Zone 4 champions.

Andrews, a team made up of current and recently graduated Portland High School players, made its way through the state tournament in dominant fashion, outscoring its opponents by a combined 48-7.

Against Brewer, the Portland team combined 15 hits – six players had at least two hits each – with errorless defense and solid pitching.

“They have great pitching, those kids really competed, and they definitely have good coaching,” said Brewer coach David Morris. “And when you have a team that’s played together as long as they have, they’re seasoned, they don’t get rattled, you have to play a perfect game to beat them.”

Counting their 2006 high school season, which ended with a 4-3 loss to Bangor in the Class A state final, the Portland/Andrews players will take a 45-1 record to the AL Northeast Regional at Brockton, Mass., on Aug. 10-14.

“We’ve got a bunch of 19-year-olds, and we played there last year and felt we were the second-best team in the tournament behind Connecticut,” said Mike Rutherford, the Andrews coach since 1991. “Now the kids know that talent, they know that you’ve got to get some breaks … but I think we can play with anybody.”

For Brewer, Wednesday’s loss ended a strong run, as the Falcons won the Zone 1 regular-season and tournament crowns before its second-place finish at the states – becoming the first non-Zone 4 team to reach the championship round since 2002.

“We’re all proud of everybody that’s on the team, and the coaches did a heck of a job,” said Brewer third baseman Kevin McAvoy, who shared tournament MVP honors with catcher Travis Hasenfus of Monmouth. “The way we played this year has been everything I expected, everything I wanted.”

The Falcons got a boost Wednesday with the return to the lineup of catcher Cam Wadleigh, sidelined since being injured during a collision with McAvoy while chasing a foul ball during the opening day of the tournament Saturday.

That enabled Joe Robicheau, normally a prime member of Brewer’s pitching rotation but the only healthy catcher without Wadleigh in the lineup, to get his first pitching start of the tournament.

Andrews defeated Brewer 8-1 when they met as the tournament’s final two undefeated teams Monday night. But while Brewer took a 1-0 lead in the earlier meeting, it was Andrews that jumped out in front in the championship game.

Joey Martin hit a two-out triple down the left field line and scored on Joe Fessenden’s ground single to left to give Andrews a 1-0 lead in the top of the first.

That lead doubled in the second on an RBI single by No. 9 hitter John Moran, who finished with a double, two singles, and three RBIs.

Brewer’s Ben Davis made the first of his two stellar defensive plays in the top of the third. After Fessenden hit a leadoff single, Davis made a leaping catch in center field to rob Anthony Fasulo of extra bases and start an 8-4-3 double play.

Andrews broke the game open with four runs in the top of the fifth, a rally highlighted by Moran’s two-out double to right and a sacrifice fly by David Nealley.

Brewer had runners on second and third with two outs in the bottom of the fifth, thanks to a walk to Ricky Adams and a double to left by McAvoy, when the game was delayed for 1 hour, 15 minutes due to a shower and several flashes of lightning.

Fessenden, who allowed just four hits over the first 4 2/3 innings, returned to the mound for Andrews after the delay, and Robicheau greeted him with a two-run double that one-hopped the left field fence to pull the Falcons within 6-2.

When Fessenden yielded a leadoff single to Prentiss Swett in the Brewer sixth, that marked the end of his day on the mound as lefty Ian Boyle came on in relief.

McAvoy replaced Robicheau on the mound after the delay, and retired Andrews without a run in the sixth. But Fasulo hit a leadoff triple in the seventh and scored on a wild pitch.

The rest of the inning belonged to Andrews center fielder Scott Nappi. First he tripled and stole home to make it 8-2, then he robbed Robicheau of extra bases with two on and one out in the bottom of the inning with a diving, over-the-shoulder catch on a drive to left-center. That blast did go as a sacrifice fly, as Adams scored from third to cut the gap to 8-3.

Andrews (27-0) 110 040 200 – 8 15 0

Brewer (26-5) 000 020 100 – 3 8 2

Fessenden, Boyle (6), Arsenault (7) and Nealley; Robicheau, McAvoy (6) and Wadleigh