LEWISTON — A bad hip didn’t slow senior defenseman Angel Drouin’s decision to carry the puck on an end-to-end rush, or keep her from getting up a good stride when she committed.
Drouin finished the rush with a wrist shot from the slot and put the Edward Little/Leavitt/Poland Red Hornets in front to stay at 3:22 of the third period of a narrow 3-2 win over rival Lewiston/Monmouth/Oak Hill on Friday night at Androscoggin Bank Colisee.
“It kind of hurt to rush it up, but I didn’t really see any outlets,” Drouin said. “I’ve always been good with picking up my speed pretty quickly. I’m used to skating through tight spaces, so it really doesn’t bother me, whether I see a big lane or a small lane.”
“All of our defensemen are such strong skaters, they have the green light when the lane is there,” Red Hornets coach Shon Collins said. “It’s really about reading it. She had a nice lane. The winger on this side actually did a real good job of clearing the area by cutting across the ice.”
Senior defenseman Kaylee Younk added an insurance goal with 7:58 to go. That was enough to offset the second goal of the night by Blue Devils sophomore defender Katie Lemieux with 3:18 left.
“They’ve got four senior defensemen that are just excellent, and a good goalie,” Blue Devils coach Ron Dumont said. “The game plan was that we were going to kind of wait it out, and the clock was going to be our friend if we could keep it close, and it kind of worked out that way.”
The Blue Devils (2-4-1) survived being dominated by the Red Hornets (5-1-1) in the first period, allowing 15 shots while putting only two on Hornets goalie Maranda Guimond (12 saves in the game).
Junior forward Saige Arsenault got the Red Hornets’ lone goal of the period at 8:46 by outworking a crowd in front of the net for a rebound of Samantha Martineau’s shot from the point.
“When I shoot, I close my eyes, so I guess I just got kind of lucky,” Arsenault said. “The big thing is coming out as fast as we can and make a statement on the ice so we set the pace and the other team doesn’t. It’s a little easier to get pumped up (against a rival).”
“We’ve had a couple of slow starts before this and understood that we need to work on coming out with energy right from the beginning of the game,” Collins said.
Blue Devils junior goalie Meagan Gosselin kept the margin at 1-0 with a couple of nice stops to deny Mariah Vaillancourt. Gosselin split time in net with freshman Camree St. Hilaire and the pair combined for 30 saves.
Lemieux drew the Blue Devils even at 5:36 of the second period. They maintained the momentum for much of the period and stayed virtually stride for stride with the Red Hornets, outshooting them 8-7. Edward Little/Leavitt/Poland held a 33-14 shot advantage for the game.
“I thought we got away from doing the little things we had been doing. The first period, I really thought we were controlling the puck and moving it well without forcing it,” Collins said. “Second period, I thought we started forcing it and got away from doing the little things that you need to do.”
“Very rarely when you lose do you feel really good,” Dumont said. “Obviously, we would have to win. But just the effort they put out is something we can build on. We’ve got a lot of young kids and they showed they can compete now.”
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