BOURNE — Fans arriving late to the game at the John Gallo Arena on Sunday could hear the cheering from well beyond the hockey rink’s walls. The top-ranked, undefeated Nauset boys team was already on its way to another shutout victory, defeating fourth-seeded Scituate 8-0 and earning a spot in the state finals at Boston’s TD Garden this weekend.

Their opponents will be the second-ranked Medfield Warriors, who have 22 wins, one loss, and one tie this season. It was Nauset that handed Medfield its only loss, a 3-0 game in Franklin on Feb. 17. It was the last game of Medfield’s regular season. Nauset’s history-making record is 23 wins, no losses, and one tie.

Sunday’s game was Nauset’s 18th consecutive win and senior goalie Zach Coelho’s 13th shutout of the season. Single goals were scored by sophomore Samuel Mayhew, junior Maximus Lanzetta, senior Colin Ward, junior Jake Eldridge, sophomore Colin Sullivan, and junior Oscar Escher, with senior captain Logan Poulin finding the net twice.

The team’s confidence on Sunday can perhaps be traced to its 5-1 victory in the quarterfinal game against the Marblehead Hockey Headers last Thursday, March 6. Although Marblehead was seeded eighth overall this year with a regular season record of 15-5-1, that game was still high-stakes for the Warriors — the last time Nauset and Marblehead met each other on the ice was a year ago in the state finals, when the Headers dealt Nauset a painful 1-0 loss and took home the Division 3 trophy.

Poulin later told the Independent he had “no doubt” that the Warriors would be back in 2025 to seek redemption. On Thursday, the fans were ready, too, with one woman holding a sign that said “Marblehead: Your road to TD Garden ends here.” Everyone wanted to see if Poulin would make good on last year’s promise — and he and his team did just that.

Despite the final score, the game was far from easy. Marblehead scored first, a mere two minutes and nine seconds into the first period, with senior Kyle Hart sending the puck cleanly past Coelho on a pass from his classmate Crew Monaco. It was only the second goal scored on Nauset in a stretch of eight games.

The Warriors had plenty of shots on goal in the first period, but most went wide, and the few that didn’t were adroitly stopped by Marblehead’s senior goalie Leo Burge. Even when an intense dogpile broke out in front of the goal in the final minutes of the first period, Burge stood firm, not letting a single shot past.

Marblehead’s defense began to show cracks early in the second period, when Nauset junior Zachary Weiner scored on an assist from Ward, tying the score 1-1. The home side of the stands erupted in wild cheers, with one excited fan earning a rebuke from the announcer when he threw a water bottle onto the ice.

Nauset improved visibly from there, shooting and blocking more crisply than in the first period. Both team’s goalies were at the top of their game, with the Warriors successfully blocking a relentless series of shots on goal in the period’s harrowing ninth minute. Lanzetta was hit with a penalty after diving to intercept a breakaway rush by Headers forward London McDonald, but it was a worthy transgression — the Marblehead junior had been in an excellent position to score.

The game was still tied up to the second half of the third period, when the Warriors turned it up a notch. Ward scored on a pass from Eldredge with 6:49 left on the clock, and the atmosphere in the rink became electric. The next six and a half minutes were a dizzying onslaught of successful Nauset shots.

Junior Logan Miller scored with 5:06 left; Ward scored again after another minute and 50 seconds of game time; Eldredge rounded out the match with a goal of his own during the final 30 seconds. At one point, Eldredge and Miller engaged in their now-signature series of teasing back-and-forth passes, exulting in front of a roaring crowd of gleeful fans.

Principal Pat Clark shook his players’ hands as they filed into the locker room after the Marblehead game, congratulating them on a job well done as the stadium speakers blasted “Takin’ Care of Business” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Despite being in the net for the full 45 minutes, Coelho was cool. “I wasn’t nervous at all going into the game,” he said. “We’d been waiting to play that game for a year, so it felt good to get it done. It was really nice beating them.”

That enthusiasm carried through the weekend, and even more fans came to the semifinals in Bourne. Spectators pushed for seats in the rink’s downstairs section to get a look through the glass at their favorite players. Two young children decked out in Nauset attire stood sentry outside the locker room, collecting fist bumps from players as they ducked through the door.

The team took that energy to the ice: Nauset ran away with the game against Scituate, scoring three times in the first period and steadily widening their lead through the rest of the game. Scituate never gave up, but its fans could tell by the end of the second period that the game was unwinnable for the Sailors. Nauset continued to play it cool, scoring goal after goal on their opponents.

Medfield won its quarterfinals game 2-0 and its semifinals game 4-1, but Nauset stands a full point over Medfield in the divisional power rankings, which are based on a team’s average margin of victory and the average rating of their opponents. When they take the ice at 5:30 on Sunday at TD Garden, the Nauset Warriors will have a real shot at seizing the trophy that eluded them last year and coming home as champions.