GOFFSTOWN — It took two comeback efforts, but in the end, Nashua found a way to win the 14-year-old Babe Ruth State Championship at Allard Park Saturday.

Nashua trailed Keene 3-1 in the seventh and 4-3 in the eighth but rallied each time to earn a 5-4 win. Connor Baldassaro delivered the winning hit, dropping a ball into shallow right field to plate Pat McDonnell and Mike Habibi.

“It was a little closer than it needed to be. We left runners on, I think every inning, so we had opportunities that slipped by us early in the game,” Nashua manager John Gunter said. “I think the fact that we got runners on kept the kids in the game. They knew we could do it, it was just a matter of finding the inning to pull it off.”

Keene took a 4-3 lead in the top of the eighth inning when Peter Brown reached on an infield single, stole second base and scored on a Lucas Lower base hit into center field.

But Nashua came through in the bottom of the eighth. No. 9 hitter McDonnell took a Glenn Gagne pitch off the helmet to reach first base. Habibi followed with a single and Colby Gunter laid a perfect bunt down the third base line to load the bases.

Baldassaro then fought through a lengthy at bat that saw him foul the ball off several times. He finally hit one between the lines, a sinking blooper into shallow right field that Keene's Ryan Strickland appeared to have a hard time finding off the bat.

Strickland managed to get over to the ball, but it hit off his glove. Strickland recovered in time to throw home, but the ball sailed over Lower's head and both McDonnell and Habibi scored for the walk-off win.

“This is my last chance for states and I really wanted a hit. I kept fouling it off and fouling it off and I was getting angry,” Baldassaro said. “When I hit it, I thought he was going to catch it. I was very surprised. It was crazy.”

As exciting a win as it was for Nashua, it was a tough way to lose for a Keene team that had fought back from the loser's bracket and needed two wins over Nashua if it was to claim the crown.

“We played pretty much error-free through the whole tournament and today we had a couple key errors that cost us a couple runs,” Keene manager Kevin Southwell said. “The boys played hard and played solid ball all week. When you lose your first game it makes it tough to come all the way back.”

Keene was three outs away from forcing a second game. Nashua trailed 3-1 heading into the bottom of the seventh. Gunter led off with a single up the box and Baldassaro singled to left field.

The runners moved over on stolen bases, but Keene pitcher Tyler Adams struck out Mike Kernan for the first out. Pinch-hitter Andrew Thibault reached on an error that scored Gunter and Mike Fuller singled to left field to score Baldassaro with the tying run. Gagne came in to close the door on a 3-3 game headed for extra innings.

Keene led 1-0 on a single run in the second inning, sparked by back-to-back-to-back singles from River Fish, Brown and Adams. Nashua tied the game at 1-1 in the bottom of the second. Spencer Bergeron doubled and eventually scored on a double play off the bat of pitcher Sam McCarthy.

Keene took a 3-1 lead in the fifth when Gagne and Fish produced RBI singles to score Strickland and Eric Zecha. But it would not be enough to hold off Nashua, which will next play in the New England Regionals at Winooski, Vt. next weekend.

The state title win served to remove the bad taste from last year when Manchester came out of the loser's bracket and defeated Nashua twice in district play to knock them out.

“A lot of these kids were thinking about that all year long,” John Gunter said. “Just getting here would have been great. Every win that we got here was icing on the cake.”

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Ian Clark may be reached at iclark@unionleader.com.