LEWISTON — Winslow/Gardiner/Cony/Messalonskee/Lawrence/Erskine/Maranacook secured a much-needed win Wednesday, ending their three-game losing streak with an 8-2 victory over Lewiston/Oak Hill at The Colisee.
Katie Berard scored six of the Black Tigers’ eight goals.
“Tonight’s win felt really great,” Berard said. “We had gone through a few losses, so this was a big one for us.”
Berard said she doesn’t really know how she managed to put up six goals, but she was happy with the result.
“I just was trying to get some goals quick off, and I was focusing on my teammates, but when there’s an opportunity, I took it,” Berard said. “I just think it’s really important that your teammates get a chance to shine with you, and it really just, like, brings you closer as a team.”
Lewiston’s (2-6) Fiona Landry scored the first goal of the game, 1:20 into the first period. Winslow (4-5) was quick to answer. Alexa Caccamo got the puck on a breakaway, just 37 seconds later, and quickly passed to Berard, who fired and scored.
“We’d been struggling recently, and it was certainly nice to come away with a win today,” Winslow coach Bill Boardman said. “We’ve had somewhat of a tough schedule, we’ve had some players out, we’ve had some illness. So we haven’t really had our whole team together recently.”
Boardman said the lineup is different every game due to the challenges the team has faced each week, and that’s made it hard for the players to gel.
Winslow’s next goal came at 4:07, when Elliotte Podey fired into the back of the net. Podey’s goal was quickly followed by Berard’s second goal, off a breakaway, 14 seconds later.
Berard closed out the first period by securing a hat trick with another breakaway goal at the 9:54 mark to push the Winslow co-op’s lead to 4-1.
Despite being up by three, Boardman said he spoke to the team about increasing its intensity in the second period.
“We talked about that at the intermission, that I didn’t think our intensity level was where it needed to be,” Boardman said. “We needed to pick it up.”
The Black Tigers’ fifth goal, and Berard’s fourth, was scored 5:51 into the second period. Carly Greer fired a shot on goal from the right side, but it deflected off the post. Berard controlled the rebound and quickly fired the puck into the back left corner.
Courtney Lachance scored for the Blue Devils a little less than two minutes later, bringing the score to 5-2.
Winslow answered with a power play goal, scored by Berard at 9:39. She again capitalized on a rebound, firing a quick shot and scoring.
Blue Devils coach Scott Laberge said there were not many things that went well for Lewiston, which was coming off a well-played 6-1 loss to powerhouse Penobscot, but that Wednesday’s game was a good learning opportunity for the team.
“Just a lot of individual play,” Laberge said. “Everybody was trying to do everything on their own. They weren’t using their linemates. And you can tell that, like, when we played that Penobscot team on Saturday and played a much better game against what I feel is a much better team — they just didn’t have the same effort tonight that we had that last week.”
The scoring efforts slowed down in the third period, with Winslow putting two more on the board and Lewiston scoring one.
Berard’s sixth and final goal was a shorthanded tally with 4:32 left in the game. Less than a minute later, Mt. Blue sophomore Leah Michaud scored the Black Tigers’ final goal.
The Blue Devils closed out the scoring with a goal by Kylie Dulac with 47 seconds remaining.
Laberge said it was difficult for Lewiston to come back, especially against a player like Berard who was often in the right place at the right time and has the skills to bury the puck into the back of the net.
“We’re down, I told them, we can get back, and unfortunately, it took us too long to finally get one,” Laberge said. “So we got a lot of work to do. Our system is designed to not allow shots from inside the house, and we just weren’t doing that tonight, like we did the other night.”
Meanwhile, Boardman was happy with Winslow’s effort. He said that offensively the team did a good job taking advantage of some of Lewiston’s play by putting someone on the weak side and staying in their lane to spread the ice out. By creating space, Boardman said Berard and Michaud had the space to work on the ice.
The Black Tigers defense followed the game plan.
“Defensively, they executed well and they did what we worked on in practice,” Boardman said. “Something I said was, ‘What makes your coach happiest is when we do things in practice, and then they execute it the next day.’ I’m very happy with with that aspect. I thought they had a great practice yesterday, and it showed today.”
Boardman, who is also Katie and Lily Berard’s uncle, said both his nieces had a great game. Lily, who was in goal for the Black Tigers, did not see a ton of shots, but he noted that she was there to make the save when needed.
“My uncle’s definitely harder on me, but it makes me a better player at the end,” Katie Berard said. “I expect us to just keep, like, the foot on the gas. I think that this one was big for us, and I think that we’re really fired up for the second half of the season.”
Boardman also said Michaud was strong defensively, and that she has been a reliable defender for the Black Tigers. She had moved to forward previously, but has played defense the last two games.
“Certainly her strength on defense was a big factor in today’s game,” Boardman said.
Caccamo had two assists and Greer had one for the Black Tigers. Lewiston’s Crew Langley had two assists and Madison Doucette tallied one.
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