Drake Livada, Mike Kertes and Kyle Dancause have been playing sports together since they were in elementary school – all three of them, now seniors at Cape Elizabeth High School, were on the 9 and 10-year-old Little League all-star team that won a state championship.

They are friends away from sports, too.

When Kertes decided to trim his long locks and sport a mullet for this year’s Western Class B hockey playoffs, he trusted Dancause to work the clippers. When something goes wrong on the ice or the diamond, the three athletes aren’t afraid to be critical with each other.

For some reason, though, when coach Jason Tremblay teamed them up together on a line – Livada playing left wing, Kertes at center and Dancause on the right – at the beginning of this season they struggled.

Kertes and Dancause were fine. They’ve played on a line together during every practice and every game since freshman year. Livada was the monkey wrench.

“It was hard,” said Livada, who played on a line with Dan Rautenberg and Bryan Holden last season. “Mike and Kyle knew where each other were going to be, but I was still getting used to their type of play.”

Dancause wouldn’t place all the blame on his friend when asked, but he did admit there was a chemistry problem.

“Our line, the three senior captains, we should’ve been scoring a lot more at the beginning than we were,” he said. “We really started out slow the first four or five games of the year. I don’t know if it was him being new or just getting our feet back under us. Probably a little of both, I’d say.”

The three players combined for just nine points through Cape’s first five games of the season, and they connected – as a line – for just one goal.

“I believe they were trying too hard to make things work,” said Tremblay. “They wanted to prove to everyone that they were the leaders.”

It had to get better, though, it just had to. Livada, Kertes and Dancause can all hit. They can all shoot; they can pass and they can handle the puck. At some point, it all had to come together.

And then, finally, one day it did. Just like that. Suddenly, after countless practices and nearly 10 games, the players knew where each other was going to be – on the defensive zone breakouts and in the offensive end.

“I remember coach saying, ‘You guys are really starting to get it going,'” said Dancause. “I’d say St. Dom’s was the game you could point to and say, ‘That’s when we started clicking as a line.’ It was starting to build up before that, but I’d say, if you’re going to look at one game it would be that one.”

The Capers lost 8-7 in overtime, but Livada, Dancause and Kertes combined for nine points in the game. The tear continued, and the Capers closed the season by winning seven of 10. Two of the wins came against Eastern Class A champion Lewiston and Western Class B No. 1-seed Greely.

So, what was the difference? According to coach Jason Tremblay it was just a matter of each player settling into his own role.

“I think you’ve got Kyle Dancause who’s just a smart, smart kid and knows all the time where to be on the ice,” he said. “And then you’ve got Livada who’s just in the corners, digging, digging, digging. And then Kertes, I think, has got the total package. He can bang, he can finesse and he can shoot. So he’s got everything, and he’s a tremendous face-off guy too for us.”

Now, they know where each other is going to be at all times.

“You can guard two of us, but one of us will be open and the other one will find him nine times out of 10, so it creates a lot of opportunities,” said Kertes.

Tallying the totals up after Saturday’s 7-1 win over York which put the Capers in the Western finals – against Greely – Livada (29 points), Kertes (36) and Dancause (26) had combined for 91 points.

“I feel these three guys knew they could do it and that they are tremendous leaders. We kept them together because we knew they could be as good as they are playing right now,” said Tremblay. “They all have tremendous drive for one thing, another state title and that is why they have come together and are very unselfish.”

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