Lewiston/Monmouth/Oak Hill’s Gemma Landry, bottom right, watches her shot sail past Winslow/Gardiner goalie Cassandra Demers and into the back of the net for the second Blue Devil goal of the game during the second period of Friday night’s hockey game at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)
Lewiston/Monmouth/Oak Hill’s Madison Conley, left, shovels a shot at Winslow/Gardiner goalie Cassandra Demers during the first period of Friday night’s hockey game at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)
Lewiston/Monmouth/Oak Hill’s Gemma Landry, center, tries to deflect a shot in the air as Winslow/Gardiner goalie Cassandra Demers keeps an eye on the puck during Friday night’s hockey game at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)
Lewiston/Monmouth/Oak Hill’s Brie Dube fires a point-blank shot at Winslow/Gardiner goalie Cassandra Demers during the third period of Friday night’s hockey game at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)
LEWISTON — What a difference four days can make.
Lewiston/Monmouth/Oak Hill scored early and often to rout Winslow/Gardiner in Monday’s KVAC girls’ hockey championship game, but Friday night, when the two teams met in the North region semifinals, the Black Tigers gave the Blue Devils a much stiffer test.
The Blue Devils were held scoreless for the first half of the game before finally breaking through, then they were able to separate enough for a 3-1 victory at Androscoggin Bank Colisee.
The regular-season meeting between the teams was an 11-0, one-sided affair for the top-seeded Blue Devils (17-2). Then the KVAC championship — an exhibition contest that serves as a postseason warmup — was a 7-0 win that saw five goals in the first 18 minutes.
“We tried to get that across to them going in, that past history means nothing,” Blue Devils coach Ron Dumont said.
The third time around saw a more stout defense from the fourth-seeded Black Tigers (12-7-1), who were coming off a quarterfinal victory over No. 5 Brunswick on Thursday. Senior goalie Cassie Demers made 13 saves in the first period, while the defense in front of her blocked a handful of other Lewiston shots.
“I didn’t think they would be (nervous), but I think what happened is they were good going in, at least that’s what I felt the climate was, but then when we were getting stifled and we weren’t getting anything quick and the clock keeps ticking and it’s 0-0 — and obviously that plays into their hand, that’s the thing I didn’t want to see — then you could tell, they were starting to press a little bit, get a little bit nervous,” Dumont said.
Freshmen Gemma Landry, one of many young players for the Blue Devils, admitted they were nervous.
“I talked to a few people, and we were kind of like getting some nerves because it was our first playoff game,” Landry said. “So, yes, we were very nervous, and we kind of got the adrenaline going a bit.”
The Blue Devils were held to just one shot on goal during a first-period power play, and a single on-target shot during another man-advantage early in the second.
“We’ve been pretty good on penalty kill all year long,” Black Tigers coach Alan Veilleux said. “We try to read and react, and our girls really came up big and they really did it well.”
The No. 1 team in the North finally broke through 7:38 into the middle frame. Landry fed Madison Conley from behind the net and Conley’s shot on Demers snuck across the line inside the right post.
The teams traded unsuccessful power plays, and it looked like the Black Tigers might head into the intermission down only one goal until Landry struck with 31.6 seconds left in the period. Sara Robert had the assist in similar fashion to Landry’s feeding of her linemate from behind the net before Landry fired into the back of it.
“We started communicating very well and looking for each other, looking for open people. And it helped a lot because both of those goals were off nice passes,” Landry said. “It was very big because having the one-goal (lead), yeah, it got us in the spot where we pretty confident, but getting that two goals, it got us even more confident and got us going to stay in it.”
The Black Tigers cut the deficit to one 2:32 into the third. Anna Chadwick got behind the defense and skated in on Blue Devils goalie Camree St. Hilaire with a breakaway and was able to trickle a shot past the sophomore netminder.
“We were trying to design something, we were trying to read them, really how they were playing their defense and what was going on, and how they were set up in the offensive zone,” Veilleux said. “We were trying to slide a girl high and finally it worked out for us. Anna’s been tenacious all year long.”
Posts and Black Tiger defenders prevented the Blue Devils from answering back, but Grace Dumond took advantage of a loose puck on a Winslow/Gardiner line change and skated through the chaos before beating Demers one-on-one, making it 3-1 with five minutes left.
Demers stopped 35 of 38 shots in her final high school game. St. Hilaire made 13 saves for the Blue Devils, who now advance to the regional final next Wednesday, where they will face either No. 2 St. Dominic Academy or No. 3 Greely/Gray-New Gloucester.
“In some respects maybe it’s good we didn’t have the easy one because the next one’s going to be probably as tough, if not tougher,” Dumont said.
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
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