With one goal, four games of frustration were forgotten.

Jake Rutt’s goal with 2:15 remaining in overtime off a pass from Jordan Bathe lifted the Scarborough High boys hockey team to a 4-3 win over Thornton Academy on Saturday night at the USM Ice Arena in Gorham, snapping the Red Storm’s four-game losing streak. The team improved to 6-5 while the Golden Trojans dropped to 7-4.

Thornton is the top team in this week’s Heal Point Standings, which include Saturday’s game. Scarborough jumped up to fourth – a nice lift for a team that had dropped four straight close games to some of the state’s top teams: St. Dom’s, Greely, Brewer and Lewiston.

On Monday night, the Trojans suffered another setback as they fell in overtime 5-4 to Greely in the first game of the “Fix Cup”, a tournament dedicated to the memory of longtime Portland sports broadcaster Frank Fixaris. The Trojans will play Falmouth in the tournament’s consolation round on Feb. 2 at 6 p.m. at the Portland Ice Arena.

After staking Greely to a 2-0 lead at the end of the first Monday night, the Trojans staged a comeback, getting goals from Jonathan Pate, Alex Howard, Christopher Maksut and Chris Stasio to tie the game at four at the end of regulation. But, Greely’s Jesse Shavel ended Thornton’s comeback hopes at 3:37 of overtime, giving the Rangers the 5-4 win.

On Saturday, Thornton took a 1-0 lead just 23 seconds into the game as Travis Dion scored, assisted by C.J. Maksut and Sam Butts. Rutt tied it up on a power play with 11:03 left in the first period, converting a feed from Nick Gadbois. Gadbois put the Storm up 2-1 when he scored a breakaway goal with 3:16 left in the first.

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The Trojans scored twice in the second period to retake the lead. Peter Remmes (from Jake Ouellette and Dion) scored with 11:22 left. Howard added a power-play goal, assisted by Ouellette, less than three minutes to make it 3-2, where it stood entering the third.

Scarborough turned up the pressure offensively, outshooting Thornton 13-4 in the third period. Hunter Wood (from Rutt and Bathe) netted the equalizer with 8:08 left.

After both teams had shots early in overtime, Rutt finally ended matters, putting Bathe’s pass past Thornton netminder Rick Hebb (29 saves) from the right side.

Scarborough finished with a 33-25 edge in shots on goal. Matt Mayo made 22 saves for the Storm, which defeated the Trojans 3-2 in overtime when the teams met in December.

Sports Editor Mike Higgins contributed to this report


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