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PORTLAND — The Gray-New Gloucester girls basketball team hasn’t played many close games this year. But the Patriots showed they know how to handle it when one comes along.

Abbey Steele scored 16 points and hit a pivotal fourth-quarter basket, freshman Bryn Gilmore added 15 points and nine rebounds, and top-seeded Gray-New Gloucester advanced to the Class B South final with a 50-41 victory over No. 5 Marshwood in the regional semifinals Wednesday.

The teams met in the Class A South semifinals last year, with Gray-New Gloucester winning 53-47.

The Patriots advanced to the regional final and will face No. 2 Oceanside at 6 p.m. Friday at the Portland Expo.

The upset-minded Hawks tested the Patriots (19-1), cutting leads of eight points or more to four points or fewer three times in the second half. But each time, Gray-New Gloucester — which won the title in its last year in Class B in 2019 — had an answer.

“The fact that we haven’t had a lot of games where it’s been tight like that, responding like that was good for us,” said coach Mike Andreasen, whose team earned 16 of its 18 wins by double digits. “It just came down to us getting a couple of stops, taking the air out of the ball and making them have to foul us. When it got to be a two-point, three-point game, it was a little scary.”

Gray-New Gloucester took a 36-28 lead into the fourth, but Marshwood (12-6) worked the deficit down to three points on a Renee St. Pierre basket with 3:59 to play.

The Patriots’ hustle then prevailed. Gilmore had back-to-back offensive rebounds and Steele added another before drawing a foul and making a shot while falling with 3:22 to go. She made the free throw and Gray-New Gloucester went up 43-37.

“It was definitely a great feeling,” Steele said. “It did feel (big). Playoffs are always fun basketball, so the energy was definitely intense.”

Marshwood kept fighting, narrowing the gap to 45-41 with 1:52 left on a pair of Natalie Lathrop free throws, but the Patriots came up with a pair of stops and Ivy Ouellette iced it at the free-throw line.

“I was a little anxious,” Gilmore said, “but I knew my team had it. I knew we’d get back into it.”

Isabelle Tice scored 12 points, while Lathrop recorded 11 points and four steals for Marshwood.

“I couldn’t be more proud of them,” Hawks coach Angie Littlefield said. “I don’t think we can walk away saying we had any regrets or what-ifs. … We climbed back in, we just couldn’t get over that hump and at times let too many streaks for them happen.”