LEWISTON — When Lewiston scored its first goal, the floodgates were opened on the field and in the sky as the Blue Devils took off to a 15-4 boys lacrosse win over Edward Little on Tuesday.

The Blue Devils came out “firing on all cylinders,” coach Ben Fournier said. After finding their footing in the first three minutes, Sam Payne found the back of the net to put the Blue Devils on the board with 8:23 left, his first of three goals.

Tanner Cortes scored next for Lewiston off a pass from Logan Michaud from behind the net. That was first Cortes’ five, three coming in the first quarter. The trio of Payne, Michaud and Cortes ran roughshod through the Red Eddies’ defense in the first quarter, helping the Blue Devils build a 7-1 lead after 12 minutes.

When he steps onto Don Roux field, or any field for that matter,  Michaud knows where his longtime teammates will be.

“We’ve been playing with each other since we were probably eight or nine years old, so we all kind of built that chemistry between us,” Michaud said. “Billy (Blanchette), as well, and we can know where each other is at all times.”

Fournier isn’t about to mess with what works.

“They’ve been playing really well, with Tanner being a senior and Sam and Logan being juniors,” Fournier said. “They’ve kind of been in those same exact positions since they started high school and started playing for me. Some guys we move around from attack to mid and things like that, but we keep them at those positions working together.

“They all have great field vision and are all unselfish and make the extra pass so their buddy can score. They do a very good job.”

In the second period, after Lewiston amassed a 7-1 lead — Edward Little’s lone goal coming from Caleb Davis — the Red Eddies needed to change course with the game close to getting out of hand.

Michaud scored his third of four goals on the night to put Lewiston up 8-1 with 5:33 left in the first half.

Edward Little answered with back-to-back goals from Davis, and then another by Tyler Smith from in front of net that made it 8-4.

“We didn’t come out guns blazing, that’s for sure,” Edward Little coach Tom Smith said. “They scouted us well and they were able to exploit our clears. We made some adjustments in the second quarter that made a significant difference. We manned up a little bit better on the defensive end to make it a little more difficult on them.”

Cortes scored out of a timeout with 1:10 left in the half to put the Blue Devils up 9-4.

Lewiston was able to outrun Edward Little all night, especially on fast breaks in the first half, helped in part by the turf on Don Roux Field.

“The turf absolutely helps,” Fournier said. “It’s a game-changer being able to play on our game field every single day and learn the nuances, like how the ball bounces, how it rolls. It’s been awesome to play on it this year.”

While Smith said that Edward Little had to adjust to Lewiston’s clearances, Michaud said the Blue Devils were able to predict what kind of defense the Eddies would play.

“We found the open looks, we knew what they were going to play and they ended up playing what we are best against, so we picked it apart,” Michaud said. “They saw it and adjusted, but we adjusted to them. Overall, it led to the 15 goals on the board. I was seeing the inside looks, being able to slip behind the defensemen and get open and make sure my teammates heard me when I was open.”

Lewiston scored twice more in the third period and four times in the fourth, pulling away to what turned out to be a pretty calm win to move to 5-1 on the year. Fournier was happy with how his team stayed focused, even with an extending lead.

“We didn’t want to take anything for granted,” Fournier said. “We knew Edward Little was going to keep fighting and keep battling and keep scoring goals if they could, so we really wanted to make sure we stayed focused the entire game and finished strong.”

Edward Little’s Gunnar Winslow made seven saves in net, while Hunter Steele saved six shots for Lewiston.

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