Thymen Arensman retained fourth overall at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana with Carlos Rodriguez seventh on GC ahead of Sunday's final stage.
Arensman finished in a small GC group that finished 10 seconds behind Santiago Buitrago, whose late attack saw the Bahrain - Victorious rider earn the stage win and overall lead.
Rodriguez was in the next chase group, finishing 11th on the stage and is now 54 seconds behind Buitrago, with Arensman 42 seconds adrift of the race leader.
Earlier, AJ August had tried to escape the peloton by getting in an early break, but his group was caught. The pace then remained high until a trio of riders, deemed not to be a threat to the race leader, managed to go clear.
This group led over the stage's four categorised climbs until counter-attacks began behind, with Pablo Castrillo's (Movistar) acceleration threatened to take the stage win and gain significant time on GC.
However, a number of teams worked to catch the Spanish rider, with Bob Jungels and Tobias Foss then pushing the pace for the INEOS Grenadiers to reduce the peloton further.
Arensman and Rodriguez were then part of an ever-dwindling GC group which had to react quickly to limit losses when a late attack from Buitrago saw him distance the group to claim both the stage win and overall lead with one day remaining.