“The Lewiston-Brunswick battles have always been a good, high-level competition,” Brunswick coach Don Glover said. “It’s turned out to be a nice little rivalry back and forth.”
Back and forth is how the game went as well. The teams traded off goals one-by-one in the first quarter, with Roman Dennis scoring seven seconds in for the Blue Devils (6-3) and Josh Dorr closing out the period 10 minutes in for the Dragons (8-1) to make it 3-3.
“We knew they would come out swinging,” Glover said.
Brunswick won a meeting earlier in the season at home, beating the Blue Devils 8-6. Lewiston topped their scoring output by halftime in the rematch, and headed into intermission up 7-6. Alex Rivet had a hand in six of those seven goals, scoring three and assisting on three more. Jayden Wilson, Gunnar Wade and Mo Khalid also found the back of the net before halftime.
“Rivet had a good game,” Lewiston coach Ben Fournier said. “He’s a tough player. He’s not afraid to run through a check or take a hit. He’ll go to goal no matter what.”
The Blue Devils didn’t score in the third period, when the Dragons took a 9-7 lead and grabbed hold of momentum.
“Basically coming into the third it was just ‘settle down, gentlemen,'” Glover said. “We were forcing some things. We were making some silly plays. We weren’t playing well defensively.”
The Dragon defense held Lewiston to just one shot on goal in the third, and that came on the man-up in the final minute.
Jameson Cyr and Jameson and Aiden Glover scored the Brunswick goals in the third. Cyr scored a game-high five goals for the Dragons, who had five different scorers.
“Our offense is good because pretty much anyone out there can score,” Cyr said. “So we just like to come from different angles.”
The Blue Devils tied the game up 9-9 early in the fourth. Garret Poussard picked up a ground ball of the opening faceoff and ran in for a goal 14 seconds in. Wilson fed Brendon Croteau for a one-timer in front of the net two minutes later.
Those two moments of solid ball-handling were the exception to the rule for Lewiston, which was badly beaten in ground balls for the game. Turnovers also hurt the Blue Devils.
“Ground balls are huge in (the neutral) zone, and we’ve been preaching that all year,” Fournier said. “We had our chances. We just got to get it in our stick and keep it our stick.”
The game stayed tied at 9 apiece until the final four minutes. Then the Dragons, the defending Class A state champions, scored four straight goals in just over two minutes to seal a second victory against the Blue Devils.
“They knew exactly what to do and they executed very well, and they put it away. It went their way and they buried it,” Fournier said.
Dorr scored a pair in the spree, and Cyr and Aiden Glover also converted chances.
“That’s the piece that we were questioning, could we do that?” Don Glover said of his reloaded team putting the game away. “It was like, ‘OK, when are we going to flip the switch?'”
The win was a rebound of sorts for a Brunswick team that suffered its only loss of the season a week ago at Brunswick. Cyr said that defeat showed the Dragons aren’t invincible. But they can stand up to a challenge.
“It was basically the test we needed,” Glover said. “I’m proud of the guys. They responded the right way.”
For the Blue Devils, it was another frustratingly close loss to Brunswick.
“They’re just a very, very smart team, very well-coached, and they have a plan for everything and they adjust to everything really well,” Fournier said of the Dragons. “I think we matched them physically pretty well tonight, but mentally they just had a step on us.”
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
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