DANVILLE -- Veteran Legion baseball manager Harold Albertson rarely has a loss for words regardless of whether he's coming off the field as a winner or loser, and yet Thursday he wasn't sure just what to say.

Danville and Bloomsburg, who split two thrilling regular season encoutners, squared off in the opening round of the Susquehanna Valley League Legion playoffs.

You never would have guessed that based on the home team's early-innings performance against the visitors, which featured three errors and a pair of wild pitches.

"We beat them here and had a six-run lead before losing in the second game," the Danville manager said. "And yet we seemed uptight and not ready to play and I don't know the answer why that happened tonight.

"This was uncharacteristic of us and we have to shake it off."

Bloomsburg's Tyler Coombe took the mound against Danville and exhibited some similarities to the Post 40 players, with one exception: he's gotten better.

Mixing his fastball and curve to keep the home team off balance, Coombe displayed a gutty performance to carry Bloomsburg past Danville, 5-3, to advance to face Selinsgrove, a 3-2 winner over Berwick on Thursday.

"(Coombe is) a much better pitcher now than he was in high school," head coach Larry Bechtel said. "For one thing he knows at this level you just can't throw the ball past everyone."

Coombe cruised through the first four innings before losing his focus on the mound after a clap of thunder and bolt of lightning caught his attention in the fifth. Danville sent eight batters to the plate and scored three runs highlighted by Chris Bohan's two-run single to cut the home team's deficit to 5-3.

"I knew about the no-hitter going into the fifth and talked about it in the dugout," Coombe said. "The lightning and wanting to finish the inning to make the game official caused me to lose my focus. Up until that point I was cruising along.

"I wasn't hitting my spots with the fastball early, but getting my curveball over for strikes."

The same could not be said of the Danville squad, who looked uncharacteristically tight and played poorly in the field.

After an out, Mark Fulton reached on an infield single and was wild-pitched to second by losing pitcher Dan Winnie, before Mitch Johnson singled to center. Adam Diltz hit a one-hopper to the mound but the ball was thrown away, allowing two runs to come home.

Diltz moved to third on a groundout and scored on a wild pitch.

"This is the playoffs and you can't give a good team like Bloomsburg any more outs in an inning than what they need," Albertson said. "We didn't hit the ball early, and made too many mistakes."

Bloomsburg upped the advantage to 5-0 in the fourth when Jack Breisch singled and Fulton walked, while Mitch Johnson slapped a single to right that plated one run. A throwing error allowed the second to cross the diamond.

Albertson switched pitchers and Mike Smith kept the visitors in check the rest of the way, including striking out three.

Danvillle made one last attempt to tie or take the lead in the seventh when Bohan reached on an error and with two outs Smith singled to center, but Coombe got Andrew Shoop to pop up and end the threat.

"The bottom of the lineup came through for us tonight," Bechtel said. "Tyler gutted it out and we took advantage of their mistakes and played tough."

Johnson paced the winners with two singles followed by Fulton, Breisch and Evan Grandizio all with one single.

"They did not have an earned run and our pitchers only gave up five hits," Albertson said. "We have to play better next time out.

"Somebody has to make it through the consolation round, so why can't it be us? We either can come out and go through the motions or play like we are capable and maybe see those guys again."