LEWISTON — Brock Bergeron’s first taste of the Lewiston-St. Dom’s boys hockey rivalry at Androscoggin Bank Colisee was a memorable one.
The Blue Devils’ freshman forward scored a hat trick and added an assist in a 6-0 Lewiston victory on Friday.
“It was good. Felt good. First varsity hat trick,” Bergeron said. “Just kept it simple. Put the pucks in deep.”
Off assists from Logan Tripp and Michael Belleau, Bergeron opened the scoring 4:07 into the game.
“He’s a good player. We’ve known that from the beginning. He kind of broke out a little bit, and he broke out at a good time,” Lewiston coach Jamie Belleau said. “He’s had a lot of looks. His line, Michael and Logan and him, they’ve had a lot of good looks this year.”
The Blue Devils (11-0) added to Bergeron’s initial tally with a Ryan Pomerleau goal 16 seconds later to make it 2-0. Kurtis Pelletier assisted on the goal. Those two then provided the helpers on Ben St. Laurent’s goal 10 minutes in, with St. Laurent banging his shot off the left post and in.
Bergeron rounded out the first-period scoring with his second goal 8.8 seconds before the first intermission. He split two defenders before deking Saints (6-4) goalie Alex Roy.
“The first three or four minutes of the game we played well, got some shots, and then we just went down. Deflated and no effort,” Saints coach Dan D’Auteuil said. “I mean, their fourth goal, the guy skated right through our defensemen, and no effort, no one even tried. So it was disappointing, truly disappointing the effort that we put out.”
Damon Bossie was the beneficiary of a nifty Bergeron pass during 4-on-4 play late in the second, his goal making it 5-0 after two periods.
“Just thought I’d just put it in between my legs and go for it,” Bergeron said.
Bergeron rounded out the scoring with a power-play goal a little less than five minutes into the third. The Blue Devils won the initial faceoof to start the man-advantage and the puck went back to Drew St. Hilaire, whose shot was redirected on goal by Tripp. The rebound then went to Bergeron, who was “pretty hyped” to see the loose puck with a chance at a hat trick.
“He’ll be the first one to tell you it takes a team effort out there, and his linemates helped him out, and his defensive side,” Jamie Belleau said.
The Saints (6-4) tried hard to avoid the shutout, sending seven shots on goal in the third after totaling that amount combined between the first two periods, but Lewiston goalie Keegan McLaughlin made 14 saves to secure the clean sheet.
“That’s what I told them at the end of the game, I said the one good thing they did in that third period was they actually started shooting,” D’Auteuil said. “They were still from far, but we were actually getting pucks to the net, which is what we’ve been preaching to them all year.”
Belleau was happy to see his team add on to their scorching start.
“Sometimes you can win playing one good period, but if you really want to get to where you want to go, you want to have consistency in your effort, consistency in your discipline, and so we talk about that a lot,” he said. “I thought, with the exception of a couple of penalties in the second, I thought we played three pretty good periods of hockey. We also got everybody involved.”
Roy made 21 saves for St. Dom’s.
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