LEWISTON — Their goalie gets the headlines and their forwards make the highlights, but the defensemen for St. Dominic Academy also have a hand in the Saints making it to Saturday’s Class A boys hockey state championship game.

The blue-liners are just fine with staying out of the spotlight.

“I don’t really think we need the attention, as long as we keep winning,” junior Jacques Ouellette said. “That’s how I look at it.”

“Defense isn’t really the (most glorious) job, but it’s getting us far, so it’s worth it,” said Michael Cilley, Ouellette’s classmate and defensive partner.

The six-man defensive corps has been part of a Saints team that allowed just 32 goals in 18 regular-season games — a 1.78 goals-per-game clip — as well as a shutout in the regional semifinals and a relatively quiet two goals-against while facing Lewiston in the Class A North final.

“I think we all take a lot of pride in what we do,” senior Ben Gosselin said. “We’re not really the faces of St. Dom’s, per se. We’re not scoring the goals, but we’re keeping them out of the back of the net with (goalie Gaston Fuksa), and that’s something that I can say I’m really proud of.”

The ‘D’ corps might not be familiar to those outside of the team, but the half-dozen defensemen are familiar with each other, and that’s been a big key to their success.

“They’re just as good as a lot of the other (past defensemen), but the difference with them is we’ve been playing six kids all winter long, for the most part. So they’re used to each other. And when one’s maybe not having a good game, you know, D (No. 3 and No. 4) are picking up the other kids,” Saints coach Bob Parker said. “They all have nice shots, they all make good plays. But they get along, which is a strength of St. Dom’s. We’re not depending on just one defenseman to lead the way, or even two defensemnen. I’m depending on all six of them to contribute in a bunch of positive ways.”

Ouellette and Cilley have been playing together for more than five years. Gosselin and his partner, sophomore Derek Wolverton, may be two years apart, but they’re together for a second year, and they’re cousins as well. Sophomores Noah Pratt and Matt Fletcher make up the other defensive pairing.

“We’ve had a lot of the same D partners all year, so this year we’ve gotten a chance to play with each other a lot in practice and we’ve built a lot of chemistry together,” Gosselin said.

“It’s been pretty cool having the stability of one partner because last year we did roll for most of the year, and we got a lot of different partners. But this year we get to play with the same one,” Gosselin added. “With Derek, I know exactly where he’s going to be, he knows where I am. And I can trust him, he can trust me. It’s just something you really look forward to when you go out on the ice.”

The defensemen have a slightly different job than those on other teams because they know that Fuksa will make most of the saves.

“Gaston always says he’s got the first shot. Our job is to clear out the second one, get any rebound we can,” Gosselin said. “If that rebound is got to by the other team, that’s our fault, that’s not on Gaston.”

“It’s taken a lot of pressure, like not so much off us, but gives us the confidence that we can make some plays that with some other goalies you wouldn’t be able to necessarily take the risk of,” Cilley said.

The Saints watched Fuksa make 52 saves against Lewiston in the regional final, but Gosselin pointed out that the skaters got in lanes and blocked many more shots.

“I mean, a lot got through, but but I guess we stopped the ones that we needed to,” he said.

“We talked about that. If you don’t talk about it, you’re asking for trouble sometimes. So we talked about it, we practice it, we demanded it,” Parker said. “The kids came through. Everybody bought into getting in front of shots that evening, clearing shots east and west, not necessarily back up the gut. And it worked out well.”

Parker said there were flaws, and the Saints have been working on those leading up to Saturday’s state final against Biddeford. Defense is a big part of Parker’s philosophy, and he knows that unit will need to come up big against the Tigers.

“That’s the most important zone of the whole rink, as far as I’m concerned,” Parker said. “And we’ve been working hard at it, and we just do a bunch of little things, and it can pay off for you.”

wkramlich@sunjournal.com

 

Copy the Story Link