Lewiston fans scream from the stands after their team won the Class A state championship game at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston on Saturday. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal Buy this Photo
LEWISTON — The last time a Class A boys hockey team finished a season with an unblemished record was 12 years ago.
The drought is over.
Lewiston’s Kurtis Pelletier sent the nearly packed Androscoggin Bank Colisee into a frenzy with double-overtime goal that gave the Blue Devils a 2-1 win over Scarborough and put the finishing touches on a perfect 21-0 record.
“It’s great, it’s great, there’s nothing like it,” Lewiston senior forward Ryan Pomerleau said. “I don’t think it has been done since (Biddeford).”
The Blue Devils are the first team to finish without a loss or a tie since the 2007-08 Biddeford Tigers, who went 24-0.
Lewiston also becomes first school since Greely to win the boys and girls state championships in the same year. The Rangers did it in 2012 and 2013, with the boys winning the Class B title in both seasons. The Blue Devils become the first team in Class A to accomplish the feat.
“To win it the same years as the girls, it’s great,” Pomerleau said.
Sam Laroche said the Blue Devils had their sights set on a perfect season from the onset.
“My friends and I, it was our goal to be undefeated and win the state championship,” Laroche said. “I am so grateful to have them here, and my family as well. It was so important to me.”
Once Lewiston reached the midway point of the season, their confidence in their ability to seal the deal grew.
“After a couple games, we had good practices, we had good structure, defense was playing good, offense was playing good,” goaltender Keegan McLaughlin said. “Right away, we knew we had something special, and once we got to 10-and-0 we knew something was up.”
The state championship is the fourth for Lewiston under coach Jamie Belleau. This team going undefeated adds another great chapter to his tenure.
“They are all special in their own way,” Belleau said. “The Jeromey Rancourt, Bisson (brothers), (Cole) Ouellette, (Alex) Rivet), (Sam) Frechette, (Alex) Robert group that won it first, that was special. I was able to build good relationship with them.
“Like I said, as hard as we work, this is a community outside the school building, community in our locker room. You have to build relationships for these kids to work hard. Every year we that have been successful, and every year when we haven’t won — last year we had a great group with a lot of these kids — it’s a close-knit group.”
Belleau said that on thing that makes this team is special to him is he coached a lot of the players as they moved up the youth hockey ranks.
McLaughlin, as a goaltender, plays one of the toughest position in sports. A lot of pressure was on him to keep the perfect season intact.
He let out a huge sigh of relieve after the game.
“So much, it’s unbelievable,” McLaughlin said of the weight being lifted off his shoulders. “(St. Dom’s) took something from us last year … we took it back, it feels unbelievable.”
The Saints knocked off the Blue Devils in another nail-biter in the 2019 regional final, preventing Lewiston from winning a fourth consecutive state championship.
The Saints, and Lewiston’s other rival, Edward Little, ended the regular season with long winning streaks that garnered the Auburn-based teams a lot of attention. The Blue Devils, who took a 18-game winning streak into the postseason, didn’t mind and kept working toward their ultimate goal.
“It was perfectly fine with me,” Belleau said of Lewiston being overshadowed at times by the Saints’ and Red Eddies’ late-season streaks. “It’s all about the kids in the locker room. We got a job to do on the ice, that’s what we try to do. We try to get prepare for games day in and day out, the same way and these kids executed it, they did it.
“They put in all the work and that’s why they are champions now.”
Seeing their rivals receive extra attention put an added oomph in the Blue Devils’ quest for perfection.
“Of course, it motivated us,” Laroche said. “We don’t care what other teams are doing, we care what we are doing.”
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