LEWISTON — The Lewiston Blue Devils built an early lead and cruised to victory and into another regional final.
Lewiston scored five goals in the opening period en route to a 10-1 win over St. Dominic/Gray-New Gloucester/Winthrop/Monmouth in a Northern Maine girls hockey regional semifinal contest Saturday at The Colisee.
“That was basically the game plan based on the one game we did play ( against St. Dom’s in the regular season),” Blue Devils coach Ron Dumont said. “I told (our players), (the Saints) will be looking for something to hold on to. The longer they stay (in the game), the more hope you give them. In playoffs, you can’t do that, and (we) took the wind out of them, I think.”
Leah Dube, Toree St. Hilaire Charlotte Cloutier and Leah Landry each scored two goals for top-seeded Lewiston (15-2), which moves on the the regional final at Troubh Arena in Portland on Wednesday.
After winning the opening faceoff, the Blue Devils quickly set up in the offensive zone, and Dube scored 25 seconds into the game.
Lewiston added two more goals in 17 seconds to go up 3-0. St. Hilaire scored her first of the game at the 3:01 mark of the first period and she had one of the assists on Cloutier’s first goal of the period at the 3:18 mark.
Dube had an assist on each goal.
“It felt good, we worked as a team and that’s how we accomplish more,” Dube said. “Our passing worked really well, and we were moving the puck well. That’s how we were able to create opportunities.”
Cloutier scored her second goal on a power play with under nine minutes to play in the first period. Lewiston was in the 1-3-1 formation, and Cloutier, the only defenseman playing the point, shot the puck past Saints goalie Abrianna White (27 saves) for a 4-0 lead.
“They didn’t do anything different than I expected,” St. Dom’s/Gray-New Gloucester/Winthrop/Monmouth coach Paul Gosselin said. “(We) knew they would come out hard in playoff time.”
Leah Landry stretched the lead to 5-0 with under three minutes left in the opening period.
St. Hilaire scored the only goal of the second period, 35 second in, to extend the Blue Devils lead to 6-0.
Saints defender Georgie Davidson jammed home the puck early in the third period to break up Lewiston goalie Kim McLaughlin’s (four saves) shutout bid.
“You always want to get the goose egg off (the scoreboard),” Gosselin said. “It was a little bit of motivation, but you have to have some satisfaction in the work they put in.”
Gosselin said the Saints (6-10) came a long way from the start of the season in November.
“I was just telling them, ‘We started with a bunch of girls that have never played before — its hard to catch up in hockey (development-wise) — but the advancement we showed basically got us to nearly fourth place,” Gosselin said. “It wasn’t quite good enough to get by Lewiston, but that’s OK. I am extremely proud of the girls and what they accomplished.”
Sadie Morgan’s blast from the point gave Lewiston its seventh goal with exactly five minutes remaining in the game. Landry scored the eighth goal and Dube extended Lewiston’s lead to 9-1.
Courtney Lachance capped the scoring.
“There was a little gap where we weren’t getting much (offense in the second period),” Dumont said. “We didn’t need more goals, but I told them in between the second and third (periods), don’t get sloppy, though, this is playoffs, you need to play all three periods. They got their heads back into it and played a bit cleaner.”
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