AUBURN — Both teams’ coaches weren’t happy with the way things started Wednesday, and neither was particularly pleased with the ending, either. Poland/Leavitt/Oak Hill/Gray-New Gloucester and South Portland/Freeport/Waynflete battled through three periods and overtime with nothing decided, settling for a 3-3 tie at Norway Savings Bank Arena.
“The key is you can’t play from behind like that,” South Portland coach Joe Robinson said. “Its an old cliche, you got to play all three periods, and we didn’t. We didn’t play two periods. We finally and came and battled in the third. If we played that way the whole time we would have come out with a W, easily.”
South Portland/Freeport/Waynflete came back from a 3-1 deficit in the third period.
“Penalties killed us,” Kings coach Joe Hutchinson said. “That was the key to the game was discipline, and we didn’t have it tonight.”
In the first period, the Kings needed to battle through a couple of five-minute major penalties, one at the beginning of the game and one toward the end of the period.
The Kings grabbed a 1-0 lead as Theo Mahaleris found Drake Goupil nine minutes into the game.
The Kings were able to kill a five-minute major that carried over into the second period. South Portland took a penalty and the teams skated four-on-four. Garrett Derocher put the puck in the back of the net for 2-0 lead 3:36 into the middle frame. Taylor Scribner picked up the lone assist.
South Portland/Freeport/Waynflete cut the deficit to one when a Max Winston shot went past Kings keeper Ashton Dozios at the 9:48 mark.
The Kings went up 3-1 with four seconds remaining in the second, when Trent Vaillancourt found the back of the net.
South Portland/Freeport/Waynflete continued to put itself in striking distance as Devan Hanna scored 1:16 into the third period.
With 1:23 remaining in the period, Caleb Rowland scored from the slot from a feed from Adam Schfano to tie the game at three.
Neither team could break the deadlock from there.
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