Holders Inverurie Locos duly wore down the resistance of a determined Deveronvale side to book themselves a League Cup quarter-final trip away to Forres Mechanics on April 3.
Locos manager Dave Cormie was relieved to see his side take the lead, then come from behind before clinching the tie by the odd goal in five.
He said: “It was nice that for the second game in a row we put a performance together and it is pleasing from my point of view that the Locos supporters are getting behind us with some of these youngsters improving.
“Once again Jamie Michie controlled a lot of what was going on in midfield against a very good Vale side. They have quality players. On another day they may have come out on top as there was not much between the sides.
“The most pleasing thing is that everything that went against us in the game we battled back from. We need to show the fans we are hungry here and everyone from the keeper to the subs did just that.”
Locos opened the scoring four minutes before the interval.
A weak clearance was headed back into the penalty box by Jamie Michie. The ball fell at the feet of Bruce Cormie, who kept his nerve to slip the ball under James Blanchard into the net.
The equaliser came out of nothing 12 minutes into the second half as Graeme Watt twisted and turned to get past Steven Park and his hard-driven low cross was turned into his own net by Mike Morrison.
Within seven minutes the tide had turned and the Banffers found themselves in the lead. Gary McGowan curled in a cross from very wide on the right, the ball sneaking inside Andy Reid’s right corner.
Locos hit back quickly when Andrew Bisset swung in a deep cross to the far post for Park to stab past Blanchard.
The momentum was back in Locos’ favour and, with nine minutes remaining, another Bisset free kick did the damage as Morrison flicked it across goal into the path of Neil Gauld, who bulleted his header into the net for the winner.
Vale co-manager Scott Anderson said: “It’s a quiet dressing-room, but the bottom line is we did not defend two set-pieces.
“You struggle to win games if you cannot do that. We have a big strong powerful side, but we needed to go and defend the lead for about 10 minutes and I’m sure we’d have gone on to win the game.
“There are no excuses. We’re out of the cup and we let ourselves down. We let Locos back into the game and that leaves me bitterly disappointed.”