LEWISTON – Known for its offense, Biddeford showed Tuesday night it can forecheck and backcheck while the defensemen stay their ground.
And the goalie isn’t bad, either.
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Biddeford played dominating defense, beating Thornton Academy 3-0 to win the Western Class A championship at the Colisee.
The top-ranked Tigers (18-2-1) will play for their third state title in four years at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Colisee against Waterville, which beat St. Dominic 3-2 in the East final. Thornton finished 17-3-1.
Trevor Fleurent scored two power-play goals and Travis Guay added a goal for the Tigers.
Matt Roy made 26 saves for his first shutout this season.
“All year we’ve wanted to get a shutout,” Fleurent said. Roy “played huge for us.”
Biddeford scored on two of its first three power plays, while killing all four Thornton power plays.
Ten minutes into the game, Biddeford already held a 2-0 lead. But the astonishing part was the shots on goal.
The Tigers had 11, Thornton none.
“We certainly came out on fire,” Biddeford Coach Rich Reissfelder said.
If the Tigers weren’t controlling the puck in Thornton’s zone, they were rushing into it. One such rush resulted in a hooking call, giving Biddeford it first power play.
The Tigers capitalized on it at 4:29 with a Fleurent slap shot from the left circle off a defenseman’s stick. Eric Grover got the assist.
When Thornton got its first power play, the only shots recorded were by Biddeford.
“Often during the game we couldn’t get anything going,” Trojans Coach Shawn Rousseau said.
“As frustrated as I felt the truth is, Biddeford played incredibly well and won all the individual battles out there.
“They really got us off our game from the get-go.”
Shortly after the penalty was killed, Biddeford was on another rush. Guay, skating into the right circle, smoked a slap shot over goalie Rick Hebb’s shoulder at 8:16.
Thornton did manage three shots on goal before the period ended.
In the second period, Thornton held the 11-3 advantage in shots, but 10 of those came on two power plays.
The Tigers played a passive penalty kill, allowing shots from a distance and sweeping away the rebounds.
“They want you to come out and chase them and our guys played disciplined,” Reissfelder said. “We took away the cross-ice pass and (Roy) was phenomenal.”
No big deal, Roy said.
“Our defense saved me from making more saves,” Roy said. “They kept everything wide and I saw everything. It was pretty simple.”
The Trojans did get one rebound off, but Roy was right in position.
Biddeford appeared to get the nail-driving third goal at 12:30, but it was called off because of a hand pass.
That third goal finally came at 1:42 of the third on a power play. Grover shot the puck. The rebound came out to Fleurent and he blasted it in for the 3-0 lead.
Thornton couldn’t come back even though it ended up outshooting Biddeford 26-25, but with few real scoring threats.
“We wanted to minimize the quality shots,” senior defenseman Nick Fitzgerald.
“Keep all the shots coming from the outside and keep rebounds from coming out.”
Fitzgerald played on the 2007 and 2008 state title teams.
“It’s great to be back,” he said, “and now it’s one shift at a time.”
Staff Writer Kevin Thomas can be contacted at 791-6411 or at: kthomas@pressherald.com
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