People gather at Loring Baseball Field to watch the Portland Little League team play in the New England Region championship game against Salem, N.H. On the monitor, Demetrius Brown-Phillips warms up after switching to pitcher. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

The Portland Little League All-Stars run in the New England Region tournament ended Thursday with a 2-0 loss to Salem, New Hampshire in the championship game in Bristol, Connecticut.

With the win, Salem clinched a spot in the Little League World Series, which begins next week in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Portland defeated Salem, 2-0, in its opening game of the tournament. Salem earned wins over Burlington, Vermont, and Bridgewater, Massachusetts in elimination games to advance to Thursday’s championship.

Portland Coach Brian Bechard said he’s rooting for Salem to do well in Williamsport.

“I can’t wait to see them in the (World Series),” he said. “We’re two evenly matched teams. I think if we played each other 10 times, we’d each win five.”

Annie Leahy of Portland cheers at Loring Baseball Field while watching the Portland Little League team play in the New England Region championship game Thursday against Salem, N.H. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Portland couldn’t solve Salem starting pitcher Colton Johnson, who threw a complete-game three-hitter with seven strikeouts for the win. Only one Portland baserunner was able to advance past first base; Finn Day, who led off the bottom of the sixth inning with a bunt single.

“(Johnson) pitched against us in the first game, and we didn’t hit him any better then either,” Bechard said. “His fastball, it’s heavy. It’s hard to hit. There’s something with it that gave our kids fits.”

Salem took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning when Zach Bolduc scored on a perfectly executed safety squeeze bunt by Patrick DeFrancesco. As soon as Maine pitcher David King made his throw to first base to get DeFrancesco out, Bolduc broke for home, scoring easily.

Salem added a run in the top of the fourth. Grayson Buckley led off with a double and scored on Jackson Lemire’s RBI single.

People gather at Loring Baseball Field to watch the Portland Little League all-star team play for the New England Region championship. Noah Bower, 11, right, and Sam McCullum, 10, throw a ball around before the game on Thursday. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Eli Peltier and Demetrius Brown-Phillips had base hits for Portland, along with Day. Portland played excellent defense, with center fielder Joe Salvaggio making two spectacular plays. First, in the top of the third inning, Salvaggio made a perfect throw to Brown-Phillips at third base to nail a Salem baserunner and end the inning. In the top of the sixth, with two on and nobody out, Salvaggio ran hard to the left-center field gap, making an ice-cream-cone catch to rob Salem’s Nolan Dupuis of what would have been a two-run hit.

“I’ve never seen a Little League catch like that, not with my own eyes, anyway,” Bechard said.

Portland was vying to become just the fifth Maine team to advance to the Little League World Series, and would have been the second straight after Gray-New Gloucester achieved the feat last summer. The other Maine teams to advance to Williamsport were Suburban (1951), Augusta (1971), and Westbrook (2005).

Bechard said as the team progressed through the district and state tournaments, he had a feeling it could contend for the New England title.

“We knew it was going to be a deep run when we were at states,” Bechard said. “After that, we were really confident we could make a run. Overall, it was a great summer.”