LEWISTON – A very confident Lewiston team continued its run through the Eastern Class A boys’ hockey tournament Saturday.

Four days after skating to a 9-1 win against eighth-seeded Edward Little, the top-ranked Blue Devils rolled to a 10-0 victory against No. 5 Brunswick in a semifinal at the Colisee.

“We’re playing confident but in a good way,” Coach Jamie Belleau said. “I think the kids understand it takes hard work.”

The Devils will play second-seeded Bangor for the regional title at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

“Brunswick lost to us by a goal, Scarborough by two, Bangor by one, St. Dom’s by one, so there was no feeling comfortable about this game,” Belleau said. “We have had some success against them but we knew we couldn’t let them in the game.”

Evan Gosselin opened the scoring after 19 seconds when he intercepted a pass in the neutral zone and broke in alone on goalie Blake Alexander.

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“You can say the wheels fell off, but I don’t know if the wheels were there,” said Coach Mike Routhier of Brunswick (11-8-1). “It was an early goal and I think the kids got deflated a little bit.”

The Devils (16-3-1) built a 4-0 lead in the first period. Defenseman Ethan Melvin, who scored one goal in the regular season, got the first of his three goals Saturday on a blast from the left point. Tanner Hubbard made it 3-0 when he finished a three-on-two rush with the first of his two goals. Gosselin added his second goal with 15 seconds left.

“We have a nice group of kids here,” Belleau said. “Usually, every team has one or two issues, and we don’t have that right now. We have the horses that we rely on, but they’re being complemented right now. We’re getting scoring production from everybody and that’s because they’re being unselfish.”

In the second period, Melvin scored twice less than two minutes apart for a 6-0 lead. Bryan Hall added a goal 20 seconds after Melvin scored his third goal.

Patrick Deblois, Nick Perreault and Hubbard had third-period goals.

Evan Bourassa made eight saves for his fifth shutout.

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“We’ve challenged the kids all year about staying physically and emotionally consistent,” Belleau said. “They know if they bring their A game, given the schedule that we play, they can play with anybody.”

Meanwhile, the Dragons are optimistic about next winter.

“We’ll just try to take this season into next season because we’ve got everybody back,” Routhier said.

BANGOR 3, ST. DOMINIC 2: Parker Sanderson beat goalie Grant Carrier to a loose puck and scored 5:38 into the second overtime to lift the second-seeded Rams (17-3) over the third-ranked Saints (12-7).

Sanderson helped Bangor make it 2-2 by setting up third-period goals by Zeb Tuell and Kyle Farley.

Caleb Labrie opened the scoring for St. Dom’s in the first period, and Cameron Stewart scored a power-play goal to give the Saints a 2-1 lead in the third.

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Paul Betit can be contacted at 791-6424 or at:

pbetit@pressherald.com

Twitter: PaulBetitPPH

 


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