Throughout the past week, the Brunswick High School girls hockey team faced must-wins, even while battling team-wide sickness, nagging injuries and new positions.

With victories over Yarmouth/Freeport and St. Dom’s, the Dragons punched their ticket to the Eastern playoffs, which are scheduled to begin Feb. 6.

Wednesday’s 6-0 season finale loss to talented Lewiston at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee leaves only one question mark for the Dragons … will Brunswick be home for the quarterfinals or on the road?

“It has been an emotional week,” said Brunswick coach Bill Bodwell after his team finished 7-11 and currently sits in fourth place in the East. “We haven’t had many practices over the last week-and-a-half, and we have moved some people around, so we are going to have four practices before our playoff game and we’ll work to get the players comfortable in situations, which will really help us.”

Lewiston, which concluded the regular season with a 14-4 mark, received two goals and two assists from Erin Hubbard, one goal and a helper from Erica Lemieux and Mikaela Brown, and two assists off the stick of Corinne Laberge.

Early Blue Devils goal

The Blue Devils struck early while shorthanded, as Lemieux one-timed a pass from Hubbard just 2:05 into the game.

From there, the teams skated endto end, with Brunswick netminder Erin Gay making nine first-period saves. Lewiston goaltender Brianna Lajoie showed glimpses of brilliance, turning aside Rachel Moroney and Tessa Cassidy from point-blank range, finishing the frame with five saves and a 1-0 advantage.

“Lewiston is a good team that we needed to catch some early breaks against to stay in it,” said Bodwell. “We just didn’t catch those breaks.”

“It’s always pretty hard to score on her because she is a pretty good goalie,” said Brunswick defenseman Gillian Ford of Lajoie, who had 14 saves for the shutout. “This game was about us doing our best and learning with the playoffs coming up. Each game is a chance to learn and get better and just nice to know we are going to the playoffs.”

The second period was all Lewiston, which owned a 13-5 shots advantage and received goals from Emily Turner, Brown and Hubbard for a 4-0 lead, and third-period tallies by Sadie Poulin and Hubbard completed the scoring.

Despite the loss, Ford feels her team has exceeded expectations this season after advancing to the Eastern semifinals last year while garnering the top seed. She felt her teammates gave a lot in the last two big victories.

“We really put everything we had into those last two games,” said Ford, who joined the sick list on Monday and missed the Dragons’ 3-2 overtime victory over St. Dom’s. “Everybody has worked hard, everybody wants it and our work has paid off. I’m surprised every day where we are right now after all the players we lost from last season. I think we can go far as long as we keep working hard. We never expected it coming into the season, but it is great to be here now.”

And how about making the move back to defense along with Moroney and Eliza Brooks? “I’ve been switching from defense to offense all season, but Rachel and Eliza are new to defense, and we’re just working as best as we can and getting used to it,” said Ford. “We’ll do a lot of drills in practice and take advantage of the time we have on the ice while still having a good time.”

Lewiston scored on both of its power-play chances, while the Dragons failed to score on their one chance.

Gay turned aside 24 shots for Brunswick, while Grace Rabinowitz, Maddie Wilkes, Mary Sasso and Caitlyn Olson provided pressure in the Lewiston end.

Lewiston 6, Brunswick 0

At Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston
Brunswick—000—0
Lewiston— 132—6
First period — 1. (L) Erica Lemieux (Erin Hubbard,
Corinne Laberge), sh, 2:05. Penalty — (L) Bench, too
many players, 1:24.
Second period — 2. (L) Emily Turner (Mikaela St. Laurent, Mikaela Brown), 2:12; 3. (L) Mikaela Brown
(Corinne Laberge, Erin Hubbard), pp, 7:26; 4. (L) Erin
Hubbard (Sam Cote), pp, 11:31. Penalties — (B) Ashley Hartford, high sticking, 6:30; (B) Ashley Hartford,
tripping, 10:17.
Third period — 5. (L) Sadie Poulin (Erica Lemieux),
4:44; 6. (L) Erin Hubbard. Penalties — None.
Shots on goal — Brunswick – 5-5-4-14; Lewiston 10-
13-7-30.
Saves — (B) Erin Gay 24; (L) Brianna Lajoie 14.
Power play opportunities — Brunswick 0-1; Lewiston
2-2.
Records — Brunswick 7-11, Lewiston 14-4.
Next — The Dragons play in the East quarterfinals
against Yarmouth/Freeport. Site TBD.