LEWISTON — Lewiston had its hands full against Falmouth, but two first-period goals by Ryan Pomerleau lifted the Blue Devils to a 3-1 victory at Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Wednesday.
“I thought Falmouth’s kids came ready to play. I thought they worked, they were first on the puck a lot,” Lewiston coach Jamie Belleau said. “For a young team, they were feisty, they won a lot of one-on-one battles. They definitely put us on our heels for a while. I give them a lot of credit.”
The Yachtsmen, meanwhile, were left lamenting missed opportunities and costly mistakes.
“We have a lot of young players, and we made a lot of mistakes that we will have to learn from next time around,” Falmouth coach Deron Barton said. “You learn from your mistakes, you get better, more confident — that’s where we are.”
The Yachtsmen, who have only have three seniors, went 0-for-4 on the power play.
Pomerleau put Lewiston the board with a short-handed goal off a feed from Ben St. Laurent midway through the first period.
The Blue Devils (10-0-0) went on a five-minute major power play with less than four minutes remaining in the opening period after Falmouth’s Thomas Downey was called for boarding.
Pomerleau had luck on his second goal. His shot trickled toward the goal and a Falmouth defender went to clear it but ended up unintentionally pushing the puck across the goal line with a little more than three minutes remaining in the first.
Lewiston went 1-for-2 on the man advantage.
“We took the momentum from them because we scored short-handed to go up 1-0,” Belleau said. “Then we get a five(-minute major power play) and we scored early, then (Falmouth) scored short-handed. I think they fed off of that. They kept coming, you got to give that team a lot of credit.”
Falmouth (5-4-1) got on the board while still short-handed from the five-minute major. With the Blue Devils pinching in on the power play, the Yachtsmen were able to get start a break out and Owen Drummey used his speed to go end-to-end and then deked Lewiston goalie Keegan McLaughlin and put the puck top-shelf with about a minute remaining in the first period.
“He’s a special player, he can excite a team like that,” Barton said. “I thought 5-on-5, I thought we had the edge going into the third period, we had our opportunities. We just have to a better job to bear down and score.”
Falmouth goalie Sam Kidder (24 saves) made a sprawling save 30 seconds into the third period to keep the Yachtsmen in striking distance.
McLaughlin was also solid for the Blue Devils, making 11 of his 17 saves in the third period.
After a Falmouth timeout with 38.5 seconds remaining in the game, Kurtis Pelletier iced the game for Lewiston when he fired a wrist shot top-shelf past Kidder.
The two teams meet again Monday in Falmouth.
“We come right back on Monday, make some adjustments, hopefully we will have a couple of our injured players back and make it a battle,” Barton said.
Belleau isn’t looking toward the rematch quite yet as Lewiston has a rivalry game on tap against St. Dom’s on Friday.
“It’s an opportunity for both teams,” Belleau said. “It was a close game, they played pretty good, they put us on our heels. We have things we have to do better and we have a chance to redeem ourselves early on next week. But first, we have a practice tomorrow and we have a game on Friday.”
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