LEWISTON — The winds came out of the Edward Little/Leavitt/Poland girls’ hockey team’s sails early in a 8-1 loss to Scarborough on Saturday afternoon at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.
The Red Hornets (4-10-1) got a power play nearly 30 seconds into the game, but couldn’t manage much offense as Scarborough suffocated them on the penalty kill.
That ended up being their power play of the game.
“I thought the first five, six, seven minutes we hit the post once or twice,” Red Hornets coach Dana Berube said. “We had some good opportunities, and we get one deficit against us and we seemed to dwell on it.”
The penalty kill was something the Red Storm had been practicing this past week.
“We work really hard in practice on the penalty kill and power play,” Scarborough senior forward Lauren Topchik said. “Working on the power play and penalty kill is always super important and it kind of shown through today.”
Lucy Bogdanovich paced the Red Storm (7-8-1) with two goals and three assists, while Paige Spooner and Lauren Topchik added a pair of goals in the victory.
“The whole red line, Lucy, Lauren and Taylor (Veilleux) … the score sheet is filled with their numbers,” Scarborough coach Caitlin Jordan said. “They assisted on each other’s (goals), and it was a very well-done game by them.”
Bogdanovich, who took that elbowing penalty in the first minute for the Red Storm, snapped home the puck at the 6:27 mark of the opening period. Taylor Veilleux was credited with the only assist on the goal.
Bogdanovich showed her playmaking skills nearly four minutes later when she saw Lauren Topchik parked on the right side of the crease. Bogdanovich found Topchik with a backhanded pass from the left circle perfectly on Topchik’s tape. Topchik tapped the puck home for the easy goal. Veilleux had a secondary helper.
Bogdanovich and Topchik recently scored a similar goal.
“(The play) was there,” Topchik said. “I passed it to Lucy and she was there for the perfect spot. It happened the other way (today) where it was off Lucy’s shot and I was able to tip it in. We’ve been connecting really well in general.”
Katie Loisel had a great individual end-to-end rush to give the Red Storm a 3-0 lead at the 4:52 mark of the second period.
Scarborough peppered the Red Hornets goalie Miranda Guimond with 18 shots in the second period. Lauren Topchik picked up her second goal of the game off assists from Veilleux and Bogdanovich right after their second power play of the game came to an end at the 9:33 mark.
The Red Storm were 0-for-2 on the power play.
Paige Spooner stretched the lead out to 5-0 with 3:47 remaining in the middle stanza, with Carrie Timpson getting an assist on the goal.
Taylor Callier’s hardworking effort got the Red Hornets on the board, as she stole puck from a defenseman at the Red Hornets offensive blue line and was able to lift the puck past Grace Carreiro at the 4:46 mark of the third period.
Berube said that Callier leaves everything on the ice for the Red Hornets.
“That’s what you get from her everyday, not only in practice but in every game,” Berube said. “Some of her teammates need to kind of piggyback on that and need to bring that effort to the rink or we are going to continue to have the results we keep getting.”
Carrie Timpson, Bogdanovich and Spooner added third-period goals for the Red Storm.
Ivy DiBiase who played the first two periods and Carreiro who played the third combined to make nine saves in the victory, while Guimond stopped 37 shots in the losing effort.
nfournier@sunjournal.com
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