NORTH BERWICK — Thornton Academy and Noble High went into Friday night’s Class A South game as the top two teams in the Varsity Maine football poll. And that’s where they should remain.

No. 1 Thornton, the defending Class A champion and winner of six of the last 11 Class A titles, won 33-26, thanks to a 77-yard kickoff return by Ryan Camire right after Noble’s Tommy Gagnon had scored on a 4-yard run to give the second-ranked Knights a 26-25 lead with four minutes to play.

Gagnon’s touchdown capped a 12-play, 61-yard drive that featured seven runs by Gagnon and a key unsportsmanlike penalty on Camire after a Noble pass completion.

It didn’t take Camire long to make amends.

“After getting the flag down there and costing my team, I had to make a play, so I thought, ‘If I can get this ball, I just have to find a hole and go,’ ” Camire said. It turned out to be more than a hole.

After Camire picked up the short, bouncing kick near the right hash, a wide path opened toward midfield.

The Knights, in their second season back in Class A, went toe-to-toe with Thornton, from the opening drive when they marched down the field a touchdown, to the way they responded to a 25-14 deficit early in the second half.

“It just showed us that we can compete with them and we belong in that situation,” said Noble quarterback Jamier Rose, who threw for 164 yards and a touchdown and ran for 49 yards and a score. “We were up. We make mistakes. But now we know if we learn from them and take care of some stuff, we have a chance to be there at the end.”

Nearly 3,000 people were on hand for what was arguably Noble’s most significant home game since the current high school was opened in 2002 – maybe since the Knights won their only Class A title in 1997, when the high school was in Berwick. Noble played in Class B from 2013-22.

Many of those fans and most of the Noble players were still lingering near the field several minutes after the game. They were more determined than dejected.

“They believe. I think that’s the biggest thing, they believed they could win the game and they went down and scored,” said Noble Coach Keenon Blindow. “I think we showed that we can compete at a high level with some of the best teams in the state. We were excited for this game. We knew we had a good game plan and we had the right tools to be successful in Class A. And the community’s behind us, the place was packed. It was a lot of fun.”

Both teams are 4-1. Noble had a slight edge in yardage, 301-279.

Rose was sacked five times, including by Dominic Hussey on Noble’s final play on fourth-and-12 from its own 42. Linebackers Hussey and Brennan Tabor were instrumental in containing Rose, a dangerous runner.

“In the first half, he was running all over us. He’s a very good quarterback,” Hussey said. “We game-planned for him. We knew it would be tough to stop him. We started to bring a little more pressure in the second half to erase that run game he had.”

Thornton scored on all three of its first-half possessions. Wyatt Benoit (8-of-11 passing, 99 yards; 10 rushes, 75 yards) showed his big-play abilities by hitting Jackson Paradis for 26-yard touchdown pass that cut Noble’s early lead to 7-6. Connor Ayoob capped Thornton’s second drive with a 14-yard run that put Thornton ahead 12-7.

Noble went ahead 14-12 on Rose’s 7-yard run, two plays after Hayden Davis had made a tough catch, then gained extra yardage for a 44-yard gain.

Thornton didn’t dally in retaking the lead, 18-14, as Benoit ran 38 yards for a touchdown with 2:42 left in the half.

When Mauricio Sunderland scored on a 4-yard run to finish Thornton’s first drive of the second half, the Trojans led 25-14 after a point-after kick from Yeonwoo Kim. The Thornton defense then forced a punt, only to end up being assessed two personal foul penalties on an unsuccessful fake punt attempt.

Noble turned that into points – Rose’s 11-yard shovel pass to Kaden Dustin.

“We had a couple chances to take it over and we were our own worst enemy,” said Thornton Coach Kevin Kezal. “Penalties. You can’t take a double personal foul in a punt situation, and all of a sudden they have a first down. You can’t do that against good football teams. We’ll learn from that.”