LEWISTON — Lewiston scored first and never looked back Wednesday night in front of a large home crowd as the second-seeded Blue Devils knocked out seventh-seeded Edward Little 9-3 in a Class A North boys lacrosse quarterfinal.
Eli Bigelow scored a hat trick and Gavin Cronkhite and Kyle Graves each scored two goals as part of a cavalcade of five goal-scorers on the night for the Blue Devils (7-6).
The game started out slow, as both teams were putting up shots that went just wide and were feeling each other out in the physicality department, and the first quarter ended 1-0 in favor of Lewiston. The Blue Devils were only able to muster together two more goals in the first half — two from Bigelow and another from Graves. Edward Little (4-10) earned its lone goal of the half from Wesley Clements, who had his hand in all three Red Eddie goals by scoring two and assisting on another.
“The offensive game plan was to get shots on goal and get their goalie out but he made some really good low saves,” Edward Little coach Tom Smith said. “We were trying to shoot on him but he was able to stop them.”
Clements scored with 9:33 left in the third quarter to put EL within 4-2 after getting knocked down and bouncing back up over and over again.
“He’s been like that all season long. He gets knocked down and every time you think he might not get back up or get back into the game, half the time he just fights through it and he’s been a warrior this year,” Smith said.
The second half was all Lewiston, as the Blue Devils rattled off four goals in the third period and started to wear down the thin-manned Red Eddies.
“Couple minor adjustments, but we knew EL was not going to give up and so we had to do the same. We came out and played well and they started dropping for us,” Lewiston coach Ben Fournier said.
Cooper Kearns, goalie for Lewiston, saved seven shots, as did EL goalie Daulton David.
“Our goalie, Cooper Kearns, did really well getting the ball out of his stick and we played really well,” Fournier said. “Most people don’t think of the goalie as the catalyst for the offense but he definitely did his part, for sure.”
At the end of the third quarter, EL tried to rally back into the game with a goal from Tyler Smith but it was too little, too late.
In the fourth, Lewiston’s Troy Poulin notched a goal to make it an 8-3 game as he cut from right to left and spun in front of the goal and got the ball past David.
With 1:03 remaining, Cronkhite put the cherry on top with a goal to seal the game.
“It was a team effort, everybody played their role but our three close defensemen really stepped up tonight,” Fournier said. “We knew their main weapons were their three attackmen so we really rose to the occasion tonight.”
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