LEWISTON — After Saturday’s season-opening loss to Oak Hill, Lewiston boys lacrosse coach Ben Fournier knew the season was still young and adjustments will be made.
At practice on Monday, he wanted his players to be moving and engaged. It carried over into Tuesday’s game at Don Roux Field as the Blue Devils defeated Oxford Hills 10-1.
“On offense, we wanted to see more motion,” Fournier said. “I felt on Saturday, we were too flat and we were to stagnant. Yesterday we were preaching motion and movement on offense. We had a great practice yesterday with a lot of focus and (the players) really digested what we (coaches) were throwing at them, and they executed it tonight.”
Fournier said Lewiston’s offense isn’t based on one or two players. Four players each had two goals on Tuesday night in Bryce Dufour, Eli Bigelow, Jon Bigelow and Kyle Graves. Graves also had two assists.
“We moved the ball around and (Oxford Hills’) defense was ball-watching a little bit, so it opened up a lot of opportunities for our cutting,” Dufour said. “We just did that really well tonight and as you can see it paid off.”
Dufour opened the scoring for the Blue Devils (1-1) when he ripped a shot about 10 yards out nearly eight-and-half minutes into the first quarter. Graves had an assist.
The Vikings (1-1) controlled the latter part of the first quarter and tied the game with a minute remaining as Jacob Mondor fought through traffic in front of the crease to tie the game.
Oxford Hills coach Hunter Rowell liked his team’s ball movement in the game, but after a strong first quarter the team just went away from the game plan.
“I think we got a little complacent and like I told the guys, it’s a young season and we are going to see them again too,” Rowell said. “There was a lot of great things that happened today, but it just didn’t go in our favor today.”
Lewiston took control of the second quarter as Dufour had another long shot to give the Blue Devils a 2-1 lead nearly 90 seconds into the period.
Graves scored two in a row as he went in front of the crease to beat Vikings goalie Silas Timms (six saves). His first goal came nearly three minutes in and on his second goal he shot the ball while he was in midair to give Lewiston a 4-1 lead. Troy Poulin had an assist on Graves’ second goal.
Jon Bigelow capped the scoring in the first half to give Lewiston a 5-1 lead.
The Blue Devils added to the lead early in the third quarter when Eli Bigelow and Tyler Leger both scored before the two-minute mark.
Lewiston ended the third quarter with a 9-1 lead as Gavin Cronkhite and Jon Bigelow scored man-up goals.
In the second half, Lewiston was able to see different situations as there were a couple of man-up situations, and the Blue Devils were also two men down at one point in the fourth quarter.
“The best way to practice it is to do it in the game,” Fournier said. “We were two men down, one man down, we were kind of all over the place for a little bit. What a bigger stage than in a game? We can preach it in practice when they play against each other, but in a game when it really matters it’s a different animal. It was nice to see a lot of those situations early on (in the season).”
Eli Bigelow added his second goal early in the fourth quarter.
Lewiston goalie Donald Tripp made three saves.
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