OLD ORCHARD BEACH — Sanford and Old Orchard Beach have been locked in a game of shoots and ladders all season — as Sanford continues to rise, OOB continues to drop.

Friday night saw the latest chapter in that game play out according to the summer-long script, as the Mainers used a couple of key OOB errors to get 3-1 victory in front of 290 at The Ballpark. The loss was the seventh in a row for OOB, who at 7-29 sit in the league basement, while win moved Sanford 17-14 and to 5-0 against its interstate foe in the first season of the rivalry.

The 100-degree game-time heat got the Raging Tide bats warm in the first inning, as Tim Quinn cracked a double to deep left field to score his fellow-NECBL All-Star Billy Bereszniewicz to open up a 1-0 lead.

But Sanford starter Tripp Davis (3-1) settled down to shut down the Tide attack over the next five innings. The New Jersey Institute of Technology southpaw gave up just the one run on four hits over six innings, striking out four to pick up his second win of the season over OOB.

“I’ve always just had a rough time in the first inning, it’s been that way the past few years. I’m still trying to figure that out to be honest,” Davis said. “As the game went on I finally got my fastball going, my curve ball came around and my slider was O.K. too. They had a bunch of lefties in the line up, so I was confident going in knowing that I’d be facing a lot of lefties.”

The game remained scoreless over the next four innings as OOB’s Rich Anastasi (2-3) matched Davis mano-a-mano. But Anastasi ran into big trouble in the sixth, as two hits and an error on leftfielder Thomas Bourdon loaded the bases for Sanford with one out.

Matt Cook was called in from the pen, but after getting a strike out proceeded to hit Pat Devlin to even the game. A crucial Riley Palmer error at third base off the bat of Eric Mailer followed, giving Sanford the go-ahead run.

The Mainers added another in the seventh on a Brett Mollenhauer RBI single, and Sanford’s bullpen trio of Aaron Cohen, Jason Patten and closer Tyler Mizenko threw a scoreless inning each to seal the win. OOB was able load the bases with two outs in the ninth, but Mizenko got Quinn to strikeout with the help of a contentious strike call to notch his seventh save of the season.

As in Quinn’s case, not being able to get the big hit at the right time has consistently dogged the Tide all season. Accordingly, the two-run loss meant another trend plaguing OOB continued to rear its ugly head — the Tide have now lost an astounding 20 games by three runs or less.

“We’ve come down to a lot of ninth innings where we’ve got a couple guys on down one, two or three runs,” said shortstop Mike Fransoso, whose single in the ninth loaded the bases for Quinn. “We always seem to fight our way back in ninth and then with two outs we just can’t fight our way through. We haven’t had a walk off this whole year and we’ve had a lot of opportunities.”

Already a bit of a formality, the loss officially knocks the Raging Tide out of the playoff race. They now sit eight games behind fourth-place New Bedford with only six left to play.

Even after the frustrating summer, Fransoso said he still viewed the Tide’s season as success for different reasons other than the wins and losses.

“The point of coming to summer ball is to get better, everyone is trying to work on things,” he said. “You still take winning seriously because you never want to lose. You want the program in the first year to do good and win ballgames, but I think the main goal if for everyone to get better and I think a lot of people are.”

On the other side of the occasion, the win puts Sanford into a second-place tie with North Shore in the NECBL Eastern Division, just 1.5 games behind Newport for first place. The end-season schedule is also kind to the Mainers, as they play seven of their remaining 11 games at the friendly confines of Goodall Park.

The Mainers begin that push towards the playoffs today with a key doubleheader against Newport at Goodall starting at 3:30, while the Raging Tide host Newport on Sunday at 5:30. The two will then finish out their season series Monday night in Sanford.