LEWISTON — Jake Folsom heard his name a lot over the loudspeaker at Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Friday night. He’ll get to hear it at least once more when the Tigers return to the Colisee next week.
The junior forward scored two goals and assisted on two others to pace second-seeded Gardiner to a 5-4 victory over Cape Elizabeth in a Class B South boys’ hockey semifinal.
The Tigers (15-4-1) had just four shots on goal in the first period, but Folsom put one of them in, collecting his own rebound and burying the second chance.
“He’s our spark plug,” Gardiner coach Sam Moore said of Folsom. “One of my hardest workers and he never stops going.”
That was the lone goal of an opening period that saw Gardiner goalie Michael Poirier stop all eight shots he faced.
While the shots were even in the second period — seven apiece — the scoring was not. Folsom tallied his second goal less than four minutes into the second, with help from Tanner and Tristan Hebert. Folsom returned the favor to Tristan Hebert 99 seconds later — and 13 seconds after Cape Elizabeth had a goal waved off.
The sixth-seeded Capers (8-10-2) made a switch in goal after that, pulling starter Grant Rusk in favor of Peter Haber.
“That sucked. Grant has just been phenomenal,” Capers coach Matt Buotte said. “It wasn’t his fault. We didn’t make plays in front of him. We had to do something to kind of jump-start the team.”
The change, in addition to a pair of Gardiner penalties, paid dividends on the offensive end for Cape Elizabeth. Gavin Spidie’s shot from the left point re-directed in on the two-man advantage to put the Capers on the board 10 minutes into the period.
Folsom and Hebert teamed up to answer right back just over a minute later, with the latter scoring from the former.
The Tigers responded to another Cape Elizabeth goal early in the third, though Folsom had no part in lighting the lamp. Tim Corsello scored for the Capers just before the three-minute mark, and Ryan Kelley did the same for Gardiner exactly 30 seconds later.
“That was huge. That was really huge to come back because it takes away their momentum,” Moore said.
James Boeschenstein cut the deficit to 5-3 on the power play with less than six minutes to play, and Spidie scored on a three-man advantage (5-on-3 power play with an extra skater) with 64 seconds left to cut it to one.
“The power play has actually been our Achilles’ heel all year,” said Buotte, whose team was 3 for 7 on the power play. “Tonight we got all the goals we wanted and we didn’t get the defense.”
Spidie hit the right post with 50 seconds left on what could have been the game-tying goal, but the Tigers held on for the victory.
The Capers out-shot Gardiner 32-14, but Poirier did his job to keep as many of them out of the net as possible.
“Can’t say enough Michael Poirier. He’s one of the best in the state,” Moore said. “We’re just happy we have him back there. He’s the backbone of our team.”
“That’s one of the games where at the end of the day you just got to kind of tip hat,” Buotte said. “We poured everything we had and we just couldn’t get the game tied.”
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
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