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With a playoff feeling in the air, the Portland Hearts of Pine gave their home faithful reason to believe an extra postseason match at Fitzpatrick Stadium is a possibility.

Maine’s first-year men’s professional soccer team continued its red-hot play with Sunday’s 1-0 USL League One win over fourth-place FC Naples.

The victory cut Naples’ hold on the fourth and final home playoff berth to just four points. Fifth-place Portland (9-4-10, 37 points), with seven games remaining, has two extra games to make up the difference on Naples (11-6-8, 41 points). Third-place One Knoxville has 42 points with six games remaining.

“We knew it was a six-pointer tonight,” Portland midfielder Ollie Wright said. “We knew that the winner of this game kind of has the edge going into the final games of the season, but a lot of stuff has to be played between now and then.”

Wright scored the only goal in front of another sold out-plus crowd at Fitzy (5,862 fans, capacity 5,500) on a penalty kick in the 39th minute. Portland keeper Hunter Morse made six saves for his fifth shutout in league play. Portland is now six points clear of the playoff line. Eight clubs in the 14-team league will play a first-round game the weekend of Nov. 1-2.

“If you locked me in a dark room and made me confess, yes, we’d love a home playoff game,” said Hearts coach Bobby Murphy. “But as I told the guys, to do big things you have to take care of the small things. And the next small thing is Tuesday when we get back to training.”

There are several factors that make Portland’s push for a home playoff game realistic.

• The Hearts of Pine are on fire. They’ve gone 5-0-1 in in their last six games, with three wins on the road and a home tie against first-place Chattanooga.

• Five of the final seven games are at home, where the Hearts have sold out every game in their inaugural season. Next up is Saturday’s game against Texoma FC.

• Murphy is pushing the right buttons. After traveling all day Thursday to get back from Wednesday’s 5-2 win at Richmond, Virginia, Murphy opted to give his team Friday off. He felt they needed rest more than practice to be ready for their third game in eight days.

• Improved commitment to defense, which was on display against FC Naples. Top offensive threats and leading scorers Wright and Masashi Wada (seven goals each) both repeatedly won balls in the midfield and tracked back to make Naples’ attacking attempts more difficult.

Hearts midfielder and captain Mikey Lopez said now that it’s late September, every game will feel like a playoff game.

“We know (Naples is) ahead of us and we’re trying to catch anyone and everyone ahead of us,” Lopez said. “All these games feel like finals. So we have seven finals left. So every game from here on out feel like playoffs.”

Sunday’s match pitted two of the hottest teams in the league. Naples, which had not played in nine days, was 5-0-3 in its last eight games.

Wearing their alternate “Bandit” kits — white with small red hearts — Portland started fast with good early pressure that included a Nathan Messer direct kick from just outside the box that hit the inside of the far post and stayed out.

Wright penalty-kick goal was created after extended pressure led to two blocks by Naples’ defense on close-range shots by Titus Washington and Masashi Wada. But Wada’s shot went right into fallen defender Jake Dengler’s belly. Dengler caught the ball in his belly, he was issued a yellow card, Portland had its penalty kick and Wright made it count.

“What you’re seeing now is there’s a real belief in the group that they can go and do something,” Murphy said. “Tonight, third game in eight days, (Wada) ran a 12K the previous two games and he probably did that again tonight. Just the willingness of the guys to keep going.”