HARVEY – A dream for a perfect district record died Thursday for Ehret.

But the dream of winning its first district championship in more than five years is still alive.

West Jefferson defeated Ehret 6-5, setting up a key district 9-5A matchup Saturday. If the Patriots (20-5, 8-1) win that game, they’re the outright champions. A West Jefferson (16-11-1, 9-2) win gives the Patriots and Buccaneers a tie for the title.

The key for West Jeff, though, was making it through Thursday at home.

“We’re a game behind,” Bucs coach Rudy Thibault said. “it’s a good win, but we’ve got to play better.”

Indeed, both teams likely will hope the next game doesn’t mirror this one.

Six batters were by a pitch. Nine errors were made. And no team looked fluid and in control.

Ehret took a 1-0 first-inning lead, though head coach Boomer Newman could argue it should have been 2-0. With one run already in and the bases loaded with one out, Bryce Menge hit a grounder to the first baseman.

Joilin Rivas, at third, waited to see what the first baseman was going to do, and when the defender at first turned to throw the guy out at second, came home. He appeared to cross the plate before Mario Paulino was called out at second, but the umpire ruled the out came first.

Newman, unhappy with the call, met with the umpire at home plate, but to avail.

“It was, ‘Not sure,’ ” Newman said of the umpires explanation. “He was really sure about what he called. Early on, when he touched first and took the force off, that threw him off a little bit. IT happened so quick, that’s what it seemed like. It’s the way it goes.”

West Jeff jumped to a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the second, scoring on Kiya Campbell’s two-RBI single. Campbell, though, made a base-running gaffe and was tagged out at second.

And then the pitching settled down. After a slow start in the first inning, West Jeff’s Esterlin Ramirez got nine straight batters out to keep the Patriots at bay through four innings.

Meanwhile, Ehret’s Anthony Fricano got out of several jams to keep the deficit to just one run.

But in the fifth, Ehret took advantage of fielding errors by West Jeff to jump back on top 3-2. Kevin Parks reached after getting hit by a pitch. He advanced to second on a seemingly routine ground out to third by Brandon Thornton.

However, West Jeff’s first baseman tried to get Parks out at third, but no one was at third base to tag Parks out and the ball sailed into left field. Parks scored to make it a 2-2 game.

Jeff Boyd then doubled to left and came home on an error by the third baseman, who skipped his attempt to get Rivas out.

In the sixth, Ehret padded its lead to 5-2. But West Jeff wasn’t done, keeping the Ehret lead close by scoring two runs of its own in the sixth.

Ramirez, who picked up the win by pitching all seven innings and striking out five and giving up five runs on four hits, sent the Patriots to the field in the seventh with no more runs.

“He’s been up and down for three years,” Thibault said. “Esterlin has not pitched great all year. He had to give us at least five. I had no reason to take him out. He’d get in trouble, he’d get out. We made errors. I couldn’t have asked him to pitch better.”

Junior Rodriguez singled to start the bottom of the seventh for the Bucs, prompting Newman to move Boyd, his shortstop, to the mound to try to close the game. The move proved costly.

Jose Callado stroked a pitch to the new shortstop, who booted the ball, allowing Callado to reach safely.

Ramirez reached on ball up the middle, then James Mason launched a single down the third-base line that reached far enough to let Rodriguez and Callado to come around and score the tying and winning runs.

“I decided I wasn’t going to play for the tie,” Thibault said. “We usually bunt the ball. But when you’re playing for the win, you play for the win. The error at shortstop gave us a shot. Basically, they self-destructed in the seventh.”

“We had opportunities early not to have it in the situation we had it in the end,” Newman said. “We left a few guys we didn’t get runs on on crossing the plate early. And those come back to get you when you can’t get them in and you make a couple of bad base running mistakes.”