SOUTH PORTLAND — Gayton Post 31 fought its way into the state American Legion baseball tournament last Saturday with a three-run rally in the bottom of the ninth.

It hasn’t stopped battling since.

Gayton put together another three-run rally in the bottom of the ninth Friday, this time against two-time defending state champion Nova Seafood, for a thrilling 8-7 victory at Wainwright Sports Complex.

Six days after surviving the tournament play-in game, Gayton (22-13) is now the only unbeaten team remaining. It will play Zone 3 rival Bessey Motors at 3 p.m. Saturday secure in the knowledge that it already has a spot in Sunday’s championship round. Nova (19-4) will face Augusta in an elimination game at 11 a.m.

“You try to play it one pitch at a time and stay in the moment. All you can do is keep competing,” Gayton coach Todd Cifelli said. “There are some great teams that are left in this tournament. Nothing’s done yet for us.”

It looked done when Nova led 7-5 with one out in the ninth and had its best pitcher on the mound, reliever Jamie Ross, who had set down seven Gayton batters in a row. But Luke Cote (two hits) got the rally started with a single, then Ross hit Alex Wong with a pitch. Mekae Hyde (two hits) singled to drive in Cote and make it 7-6.

Ross then got Jeff Keene to hit a possible double-play grounder to second, but second baseman Matt Bevilacqua’s throw to Nick Colucci at second base was high. Colucci got his foot down on the base in time to force Hyde, but the speedy Keene was safe at first representing the winning run.

Greg LaBonte worked the count to 3-2 and hit a fly ball to right that Travis Wade had in his glove but dropped. Wong scored the tying run, and Keene, running on the pitch with two outs, hustled around the bases and easily beat a relay throw that never came with a belly-flop slide into home for the winner.

“I had to make sure (Ross) was going home (with the pitch),” said Keene, who still didn’t know the ball was dropped in right field. “Then I saw it was a little bloop and had a chance to fall, so I just kept running and picked up coach (Cifelli at third base) waiving me around. He must have bobbled it or something. That was a huge win.”

A win where Gayton had to rally from three runs down twice. After averaging 15 runs per game in its previous three, Gayton went scoreless through the first four innings Friday against Nova starter Cam Brown.

Trailing 3-0, Gayton got on the board in the fifth on an Alex Wong single, then took the lead in the sixth on two-run singles by Scott Ouellette and Cote.

Nova out-hit Gayton, 17-9, touching starter Corbin Hyde for 15 of those hits in 7 1/3 innings. But Hyde, whose 1-2-3 inning in the first was his only one, didn’t allow a single walk to exacerbate his problems, plus Gayton played flawless defense behind him and Nova made a few base-running mistakes.

“He got deep into the baseball game, which is great to see,” Cifelli said. “He competed against a really tough lineup that’s disciplined and attacks on the bases.”

Nova pushed across two runs in the seventh to tie it at 5-5, then took advantage of Gayton’s lone fielding miscue to take the lead in the eighth. It finally chased Hyde from the game with two on and one out. Reliever Joe Sullivan got Wade to hit a grounder to first and Keene, trying to throw out the lead runner, made a low throw to third for an error that loaded the bases. Sam Balzano followed with a two-run single for the 7-5 lead, but Wade was thrown out at third base on Keene’s relay to third to prevent any further damage.

“We got outplayed on the offensive end and that defensive end today,” Nova coach Mike D’Andrea said. “We didn’t play smart. We didn’t take aggressive at-bats. We had guys running on the bases that didn’t have steal signs. It was chaos. I give Gayton Post a lot of credit because they didn’t die.”

Keene had a simple explanation for why they Gayton didn’t die — a fitting pregame analogy from Cifeill given its opponent Friday.

“(Cifelli) always tells us funny stuff before the game,” Keene said. “One of his things is how if seals stay together, sharks won’t kill them. We were seals and we stayed together and came out with a victory.”