AUBURN — Falmouth kept shooting, and St. Dom’s goalie Gaston Fuksa kept stopping the puck — particularly in overtime.
Fuksa — a junior— made 15 of his 37 saves in overtime to preserve a 3-3 tie at the Norway Savings Bank Arena Wednesday in a key early-season Class A hockey matchup.
“He covers his angles pretty well,” St. Dom’s coach Bobby Parker said. “He’s doing a really good job and I am glad he’s on our team.”
“We’ve got to do a better job of picking corners,” Falmouth coach Deron Barton said. “Especially on a goalie like that. We’ve got to take his eyes away and get him moving. There’s a lot of stuff we could do a better job at.”
Falmouth goalie Sam Kidder made 14 saves on the game, including two in the extra frame, to earn the tie, as well.
The Yachtsmen controlled the first half of the first period, at one point outshooting the Saints 6-0. The visitors finally found the back of the net when William Fletcher took a penalty for elbowing for St. Dom’s while the Saints were on the power play. Off the ensuing faceoff in the Saints end, Falmouth won the draw, Nick Farnham passed to Marcus Cady who fired the puck past Fuksa at the 7:18 mark.
St. Dom’s tied the game with 3:13 remaining in the first when Lucas Pushard’s initial shot on Kidder ricocheted to Jacob Lewis, who put home the rebound.
“ We made some adjustments and we tried to pump the kids up to match up to how fast Falmouth was coming at us, and how rough they were being,” Parker said. “I thought we adapted pretty well. If you are going to take anything away from this game, it’s that we can play with Falmouth, and we can play with Biddeford.”
The Saints had a better start to the second period. Jeremy Phelan won a puck battle in the corner and sent the puck to the slot where Hunter Hughes gathered it all alone and snapped it past Kidder at the 3:54 mark to put the home team on top 2-1.
Penalties came to back to haunt the Saints when Dominic Chasse took a hooking penalty for the Saints while on the power play. The Yachtsmen took advantage this time. Theo Hembre found Brendan Hickey, who tied the game at two with 3:01 remaining in the period.
The Yachtsmen carried the momentum forward. Fifteen seconds after the equalizer, Cady found Jack Kidder for another strike and Falmouth took a 3-2 lead into the second intermission.
“The kids worked hard for three periods,” Barton said. “We work hard in practice, we are a third period team. It kind of showed with a flurry there and we came close on a few others as well.”
The Saints got off to another good start in the third. Jaden Webster was aggressive on the forecheck and fired the puck at Sam Kidder, who stopped the shot. But as the keeper tried to slide the puck to the side boards, Webster was waiting on the side of the crease to jam the puck home at the 4:09 mark.
Both teams were penalized for a skirmish at the end of the game. Hickey and Jack Kidder of Falmouth, and Mack Pelletier and Fletcher all received five minute majors and game misconducts for their roles in the melee.
nfournier@sunjournal.com
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