DANVERS — The Peabody Champions are headed to the North Shore Baseball League (NSBL) finals after defeating the Northeast Tides 7-6 Monday at Twi Field, winning the best of five semifinals matchup 3-1.

“Our guys — I think it is a good balance of young guys with a lot of talent and older guys, we will say with wisdom as we like to say,” said Peabody Champions Manager Mike Giardi.

Peabody threatened early with its first at-bats in the top of the first. James McCarthy hit a single to right field after Robert Jellison reached base. Jon Cahill moved the runners over with a bunt, and a subsequent walk loaded the bases.

However, Tides’ pitcher Ben Cerrato buckled down and got out of the jam, forcing Mike Mabee to ground out to first, ending the inning.

While the Champions threatened with their first ups, the Tides threatened and capitalized with theirs. Northeast’s first two batters reached base to open the bottom of the first. Ben Rose hit a ground single past the outstretched shortstop, and Drew Healey walked.

With two on, Kyle Maurice who homered in game three Sunday, had an encore performance launching a ball over the left field fence to give the Tides a 3-0 lead.

Facing a 3-0 deficit, Peabody responded right away in the top half of the second. After Chris Mansour singled up the middle, Mike Giardi was hit by a pitch, and Andrew O’Neill walked to load the bases. With the bases juiced, McCarthy hit a 2-RBI double to deep left field to make the game 3-2.

Peabody was not finished there; after Tides’ Manager Scott Bleakley elected to load the bases intentionally, Marc Birbiglia hit a tough grounder to the shortstop, who threw it over the second baseman’s head, and scored two runs.

After taking a 4-3 lead, the Champions extended its lead to 6-3 before the inning ended on a bases-loaded walk and bloop RBI single by Mansour. As the game continued, Peabody continued to mount a lead. In the top of the third, Peabody once again loaded the bases, and Birbiglia came up big again with a sacrifice grounder to make the game 7-3 in his team’s favor.

As the Champions bats stayed hot, the Tides’ bats went seemingly cold, and Peabody pitcher Tyler Leavitt was the main reason why. Leavitt settled down after a tough first inning and pitched tremendously for the Champions helping keep the Tides at bay.

The game stayed steady until the bottom of the sixth when relief pitcher Jellison entered the game for Peabody. Finally, after a considerable stretch, Northeast’s bats awoke. With the help of a couple of walks and an error, the bases were loaded for Axel Post, who hit a 2-RBI double, making the game 7-5. The Tides continued to creep back into the game with their season on the line with an RBI single by Jon Dube, and just like that, they were only down 7-6.

Unfortunately for the Tides, Jellison eventually got out of the inning with some help from his right fielder, who made a diving catch to end the inning.

Although the Champions could not get any insurance runs for their pitcher in the top of the seventh, Jellison came up huge on the mound in the bottom half of the inning. He struck out the first batter of the inning, and then the Tides had some life. Joe Abt hit a single up the middle to get his team the winning run at the plate.

Thanks to Jellison, the Tides’ hope was short-lived when he picked off Abt at first and got Drew Wyman to fly out and seal the 7-6 victory, sending the Champions to the finals.

“We have been fortunate; we have done a lot of good things, and it was big for us today. Whoever we face, whether it is Beverly or the North Shore Phillies, it is going to be a tough series,” said Giardi.