GORHAM — After surrendering seven unanswered goals against Yarmouth in its last game, the Cape Elizabeth boys’ hockey team made sure there would be no repeat performance Wednesday against Gorham at the University of Southern Maine.
The Capers dominated all over the rink, blasting 37 shots on goals and skating past the Rams, 5-1.
“We had a terrible game last time out,” said Cape Coach Matthew Buotte. “This was about us. We had to come out, and we had to put shots on net and we had to score goals. We had to work hard today, and we tried to outwork Gorham and I think that was the difference.
“In our last game we got outworked, so this was about Cape Elizabeth coming out and playing a good 45-minute game.”
Added Gorham Coach Jon Portwine: “We’ve got to be better to compete night in and night out. They just won a lot of the battles. The one-on-ones against the boards, it just seemed like they came out with the puck most of the time.”
Cape (3-2-1) took a 1-0 lead on a power play with just over two minutes to go in the first period. Alex Glidden (two assists) cycled the puck to Jeb Boeschenstein, who sent a shot toward the net. Carter Brock put in the reboundt.
“We scored first in the Yarmouth game, then took our foot off the gas,” said Buotte. “We knew we needed to score first and try to get them back on their heels. They tied it up early in the second period, and we could have sat back and let the thing come to us, but we just jumped all over them. I was really pleased with our response.”
Willy Baxter answered for Gorham (2-4) just over five minutes into the second period, but the Capers quickly made sure they wouldn’t lose momentum the way they had against Yarmouth. Less than a minute later, Ben Ekedahl scored the go-ahead goal and before the end of the period, Sean Agrodnia found the net for a short-handed goal and a 3-1 lead.
“The Yarmouth game was disappointing for us because even if you look at our exhibition games, that was the first time that we completely laid an egg,” said Buotte.
“I know we have the kind of character that our guys weren’t thinking ‘oh, here we go again.’ They were thinking ‘let’s go score again and take back the lead.’ We just ratcheted it up after that and our guys decided they weren’t leaving here without a win.”
Cape Elizabeth extended its lead to 4-1 in the opening minutes of the third period, with Phil Tarling scoring off a rebound on a shot from Eli Babcock (two assists).
The Capers tacked on their fifth goal with 1:25 to go when Brock sent a Babcock pass into the net.
“We really executed our game plan to a T,” said Buotte. “We wanted to get a lot of shots on net because we know they have two goaltenders. We were able to get the shots and two or three of our goals were second-chance goals.”
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