For Midland (Mich.) Post 165, it took eight innings and a clutch two-out single to win in Monday’s American Legion World Series semifinals and advance to Tuesday’s championship game.

For Troy (Ala.) Post 70, it took losing in the longest game in ALWS history to get them on track for a championship bid.

And for just the fifth time in 16 pool play tournaments, the two division winners will meet for the title.

Here’s how the two finalists in the 97th American Legion World Series got here.

Midland

Midland (31-6) has made more appearances in the ALWS in Shelby, nine, than any other program. But their one championship came in 2009 in Fargo, N.D., was two years before Shelby became the ALWS permanent home.

Midland lost in the semifinals in 2022 to Troy, that year’s ALWS champions. Midland’s best finish in Shelby came in 2014, when they lost the championship game to Brooklawn (N.J.) Post 72.

Post 165 is trying to become just the fifth team to finish pool play with a 3-0 record and win the championship. They would join Danville (Calif.) in 2000, Brooklawn (N.J.) in 2001 and 2014 and Idaho Falls (Idaho) in 2019.

After going 5-1 to win the Great Lakes Regional, Midland opened their pool play schedule in Shelby with a 3-0 win over Bossier City (La.) Post 202. Chad Brown retired the first 13 Bossier City batters and allowed just three hits while striking out 12 and walking two.

On Saturday, Midland flipped the script from Thursday’s slow start to a fast one, scoring all nine of their runs in the first two innings to roll past eventual Stripes runner-up Wilmington Delvets (Del.) Post 1, 9-2.

Then Midland closed out pool play with a 3-0 record by beating Billings Scarlets (Mont.) Post 4, 4-3, holding off a late Montana rally.

In Monday’s semifinals, Midland ended League City (Tex.) Post 554’s bid for a second straight championship with a 1-0, 8-inning victory on Nathan Ball’s two-out RBI single.

Troy

Two years ago, Troy won Alabama’s first ALWS title since 1967 by denying Idaho Falls (Idaho) Post 56’s bid for an unprecedented third consecutive title.

This year, Troy made history along with Fargo (N.D.) Post 2 when the two teams set or tied 26 records in a 5-4, 14-inning game that began Friday night and ended Saturday morning.

In their other three games so far in the 2024 ALWS, though, Troy (33-6) has looked nigh invincible.

On opening day Thursday, Post 70 rolled to a 10-1 victory over Hudson (Mass.) Post 100. Then, after their epic with Fargo, Troy looked dominant in an 8-0 win over League City (Tex.) in the final game of pool play.

They followed that with another late night, thanks to a three-hour weather delay that pushed the resumption of their semifinal against Wilmington Delvets (Del.) to 10:30 p.m. The pitchers’ duel between Troy’s Brody Lindsey and the Delvets’ Matthew Speicher ended when Payne Jefcoat hit a solo home run in the fourth, and a rash of errors proved the Delaware team’s final undoing in the sixth as Troy won 4-0.