AUBURN — Coming into Monday’s game, the Biddeford/Thornton Academy/Wells/Sanford girls hockey team hadn’t scored a goal in its past three regular-season games. That changed with a three-goal comeback in the third period to defeat St. Dominic Academy/Winthrop/Monmouth 4-3 at Norway Savings Bank Arena.
The Tigers (3-6-1) netted three goals in the final six minutes of the game.
“We have been working really hard in practice; I think we just needed some goals to go in,” Tigers coach Josh Williams said. “I think we finally got one in and it kind of opened the floodgates for us.”
Freshman forward Sophia Auger netted her second goal of the contest with 5:14 remaining to cut the deficit to 3-2. Jordan Dube and Cece Keller assisted on the goal.
Biddeford got its first and only power play of the game with 3:24 remaining and nine seconds later Mackenize Day tied the game for the Tigers. Dube recorded her second assist.
Junior Lily LeSieur completed the comeback when she notched the game-winner past Saints goalie Abrianna White with 16 seconds remaining.
Day delivered her second assist on the goal.
“I think Mackenzie shot it on net and I got the rebound,” LeSieur said. “I was right there and I put it in.”
LeSieur added that she picked up on observation that White was going to her left a lot. LeSieur set up on the right side of the net, where there was more room to shoot.
LeSieur didn’t want the game to go into overtime.
“I wanted it to win before overtime,” LeSieur said. “I didn’t want it to go into overtime. I think it would have been more stressful if it went into overtime. We just needed to score in those last few minutes and get it done.”
St. Dom’s coach Paul Gosselin said the Saints need to find a way to play a complete game.
“We have a young team; they have to figure out how to play a whole game,” Gosselin said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t quite make it this time.”
The Saints (3-7) got on the board with two strikes 39 seconds apart in the first period. The first goal came when Aiva Dorman dumped the puck in from the offensive blue line and the puck slid under Tigers goalie Mariah Villandry’s glove into the net at the 4:24 mark.
Emily Andrews added the second goal for the Saints when she jammed home the puck in front of the crease just past the five-minute mark of the first period for the 2-0 lead.
“Last game, we put a lot of shots on (net) and didn’t get anything out of it,” Gosselin said. “This game, we got shots on net and the game plan was to do that. It resulted in a few goals.”
The Tigers cut the deficit in half when Auger’s shot from the slot changed direction and beat White 9 minutes, 30 seconds into the first period.
Auger is one of five freshmen on the Tigers.
“We have a lot of young girls that are stepping up and being key parts of our team,” Williams said. “It’s good to see we have a mix of all our freshmen and seniors contributing. That’s huge for them and huge confidence-wise for us. Hopefully it will help us moving forward.”
Biddeford started to get in penalty trouble late in the first period and early in the second. St. Dom’s couldn’t capitalize on the first two opportunities but struck on the third. Off the faceoff after Michaela Ouellette’s penalty, Gabby Allen won the puck to Lauren Hanlon, who ripped a shot past Villandry for a 3-1 lead nearly six minutes into the middle frame.
Both goalies made a plethora of saves in the second period to keep the game 3-1 heading into the third period.
Villandry made 23 saves and White finished with 19.
“She faced a lot of shots, both the first and second period,” Williams said of Villandry. “We did a better job of shutting them down and keeping shots away from her in the third period. She stopped a lot of shots that game and was key in helping us win.”
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