LEWISTON — Travis Caron and Tiger Hopkins are high school teammates for the first time, but they have been playing together with Maine Mussels Lacrosse Club for four years.
On Saturday, the Oak Hill players were a formidable duo, combining for six goals as the Raiders defeated the Lewiston Blue Devils 10-2 in an early season boys lacrosse matchup.
Caron scored four goals and set up another, while Hopkins had two goals and four assists.
“(Tiger) draws the slide and I find open space,” Caron said.
Oak Hill coach Joe Hinkley also was pleased with the team’s defensive effort.
“Our defense was very strong, and they kept themselves together and we didn’t over commit,” Hinkley said. “They got better during the preseason and they showed it today.”
The Blue Devils did have their chances, they fired off 15 shots, but most of them weren’t on target.
“We created a lot of shots, but not a whole lot were on net,” Lewiston coach Ben Fournier said. “Oak Hill played great, they (made it hard) when we were taking those shots. So, it made it a little more difficult to get them on target. It’s the first game of the season, we will improve as it goes and hopefully the shots start falling for us.”
Lewiston did find the target early in the game, as Cody Dionne set up Troy Poulin in front of the net for a goal that gave the Blue Devils a 1-0 lead 75 seconds into the game.
The Raiders responded two minutes later when D’Andre Daniels fired the ball past Donald Tripp (six saves) to tie the game.
The score remained 1-1 until early in the second quarter when Hopkins’ first goal put Oak Hill up 2-1.
The Raiders went on a scoring spree late in the second quarter that sent them into halftime with a 5-1 lead. Riley Worth put home a shot after receiving a pass from Caron at the 8:16 mark of the quarter. Just before the nine-minute mark, Caron ripped a shot past Tripp, and 40 seconds later Adam Hinkley put home Oak Hill’s fifth goal off a feed from Worth.
“We started a little rough, but in the second quarter we opened it up a little more,” Caron said. “In the second half, everybody started playing their game.”
Early in the third quarter, Oak Hill goalie Nate Michaud made two of his four saves in the game while the Raiders were a man down.
“Nick was a huge part of today,” Joe Hinkley said. “Nick was definitely ready from the start and definitely contributed a lot to this game.”
Caron put on a show in the third quarter. He opened the second-half scoring 3:45 in with an unassisted goal while Raiders were a man up after Lewiston was caught offsides.
A minute later, Gavin Cronkhite stopped Oak Hill’s six-goal run when he potted Lewiston’s second goal of the game.
“We adjusted our game plan mid-game, but it’s a team sport and everybody has to pitch in and participate,” Fournier said.
Hopkins assisted on Caron’s next two goals as the lead stretched to 8-2.
Hopkins added another assist in the fourth quarter when his pass to the front of the crease bounced off sticks of players from both teams and into the goal. Ryan Foster was the last Oak Hill player to touch the ball and was given credit for the goal.
“It was a bad pass, truly,” Hopkins said. “It was clogged in the middle and it kind of hit the handle of his stick and it went in.”
Hopkins capped the scoring with a man-up goal in the final minute of the game.
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