Boys’ hockey: Lewiston needs rally to get past Edward Little, stay perfect

Edward Little’s Will Cassidy and Lewiston’s Ben St. Laurent both reach for the puck behind the Edward Little goal during Wednesday night’s hockey game in Auburn. (Sun Journal photo by Andree Kehn)

AUBURN — Neither Lewiston nor Edward Little knew what to do in the situation each found itself during the third period of Wednesday night’s boys’ hockey game at Norway Savings Bank Arena.

The Red Eddies held a two-goal lead on their longtime and bitter rivals, who had gotten the better of them for years. The Blue Devils hadn’t faced such a deficit during their undefeated start to the season.

The Blue Devils handled the situation better, scoring three times in the third to rally for a 4-3 victory that moved the three-time defending Class A state champs to 11-0.

“It was 3-1, and we take a lot of pride in, you know, ‘Let’s focus on the next period, let’s respond to adversity well, we got to keep working hard,’” Lewiston coach Jamie Belleau said. “It’s just all the things that we talk about day in and day out, which is responding to adversity. The game is meant to be hard. We’re expected to be challenged.”

The Blue Devils certainly received a challenge. The Red Eddies (6-4) got first-period goals from Ben Lane-Robichaud and Marius Morneau to go up 2-0.

Lewiston cut it to 2-1 on Logan Tripp’s breakaway goal in the second, but Gunnar Winslow’s goal regained the Red Eddies’ two-goal lead later in the frame.

“I thought that we did the things that we wanted to do in those first two periods,” EL coach Norm Gagne said. “We got pucks on net, we crashed the net, we played some good defense. We got a lot of good opportunities, and that’s all you can ask for.”

It took the Blue Devils nearly halfway into the third to start their comeback, but they caught up quickly once they started. Tripp and Ryan Pomerleau scored 19 seconds apart to make it 3-3 with 7:27 left.

“We haven’t experienced these things. And when they tied it up, I had to call timeout because they felt defeated, and I said, ‘It’s a tie game,’” Gagne said. “But, see, they got to learn.”

Joseph Gendron put the Blue Devils ahead with 4:40 left, slipping a shot under EL goalie Devon D’Auteuil.

“That’s a good gut-check for our young team, you know, coming into a rival game down 3-1, not really playing your best hockey and coming back and putting up three in the third,” Belleau said. “I’m really proud of them.”

The Red Eddies had one final chance with 3.4 seconds left. Belleau used his timeout before EL took an offensive zone faceoff, which the Red Eddies won, but the last-ditch shot toward the net was deflected wide by a host of Blue Devil defenders.

Jacob Smith made four of his 14 saves in the third. D’Auteuil stopped 24 shots for EL.

wkramlich@sunjournal.com