LEWISTON — For many players on the St. Dominic Academy roster, Saturday night was their first taste of the girls’ hockey rivalry with Lewiston/Monmouth/Oak Hill. The maiden matchup was a memorable one for the Saints’ first-year players, as they helped lead St. Dom’s to a 7-0 rout of the rival Blue Devils at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.
It was the Saints’ lone senior who got the scoring started, as captain Tia Rotolico beat Blue Devils goalie Meagan Gosselin through the five-hole less than four minutes in. Freshman Avery Lutrzykowski made it 2-0 about a minute later.
“I thought about shooting, and I was like, ‘I think Tia has the better shooting opportunity,’ and so I passed it and it just slid in,” Lutrzykowski said of Rotolico’s goal. “I was so pumped. And then a minute later I went down and scored.”
Rotolico and Lutrzykowski scored their second goals 45 seconds apart later in the period.
“I knew having a lot of freshmen coming in they would be a little nervous, and they were,” St. Dom’s coach Paul Gosselin said. “I think once we got a goal, we settled down and we started opening up.”
Another Saints freshman, defender Emma Theriault, scored 30 seconds into the second period, as her shot from the left point found the back of the net past Gosselin.
Rotolico then completed a hat trick midway through the period in her final regular-season rivalry game at the Colisee.
“Tia has experienced (the rivalry) for three years, and not on the good end for the last couple years,” Gosselin said. “I think this game meant a lot to her. It’s her last one here. It was great. Good for her, great game. I’m happy for her.”
Kristina Cornelio — yet another freshman — finished up the scoring 57 seconds later.
The game could have been different if the Blue Devils had converted one of three shots they put on St. Dom’s goalie Payton Winslow when the game was still scoreless, but the sophomore netminder turned away the sweat-inducing chances.
“That certainly would have been very helpful,” Blue Devils head coach Ron Dumont said. “You get on the board early, it gives you something.”
Dumont said he was disappointed that his team didn’t compete a little better, but also equated the game to a boxing match — with his team a middleweight fighter facing a heavyweight in the Saints.
Dumont made a lineup change by putting freshman defender Bree Bergeron at center and moving senior captain Corinne Laberge to the blue line, but the adjustment didn’t pay any dividends on the scoreboard against a speedy Saints team.
“You suffer a loss like this, you can pout, you can feel bad for yourself, but we just got to take something positive out of it,” Dumont said.
St. Dom’s will be in an all-heavyweight bout in its next game, as it travels to 10-0 Greely on Wednesday.
“I expect my girls to come hard and strong, as we always do, and see how the chips may fall,” Gosselin said.
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
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