
Following the Lewiston boys’ lacrosse team’s win over Edward Little last week, coach Ben Fournier said the team needed to be more consistent and attack Alex Rivet said it needed to play like every game was a playoff game.
Both were satisfied by Tuesday’s 10-4 Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference win over Mt. Ararat in the final game of the regular season and the final game at Don Roux Field.
“I think the biggest thing coming into this game was our playoff mentality,” Rivet said. “We wanted to win this game because now they’re playoff games, so one game could be your last. Especially for the seniors, so we do it for the seniors.”
Rivet helped the Blue Devils take control early when he scored two minutes into the game.
Less than two minutes later, on a designed play, Garrett Poussard passed to a charging Gunnar Wade, who caught the ball and put it in the net for a 2-0 lead.
Mt. Ararat’s Connor Brown scored to cut the lead in half, but Rivet added his second goal with 27 seconds remaining in the first quarter.
“First quarter we were a little rusty, I think,” Rivet said. “But the second quarter, we calmed down and started playing our style of lacrosse. We’re more of a slow-it-down team and then get goals.”
Rivet again opened the second-quarter scoring with a pair of goals, the second set up by Ryan Bossie, who stole the ball at midfield and passed to Rivet.
Those goals came 34 seconds apart, and Lewiston’s next two goals — one by Poussard and one by Wade — occurred 57 seconds apart.
However, the Blue Devils’ scoring didn’t come in bunches as much as it has tended to this season. Instead, Lewiston had a more consistent game.
“We definitely got that tonight,” Fournier said. “It was nice to kind of hit a good gear coming right out of the gate, and we kept plugging away at it all game and didn’t let up. It was nice that we didn’t have a little lull like we had previously.”
Mt. Ararat’s Jason Magno cut the Blue Devils’ lead to 7-3 with a goal at about the two-minute mark, but Tanner Cortez fired through a host of defenders for a goal that pushed Lewiston’s lead back to five, 8-3, with 17 seconds left in the half.
Only three goals were scored in the second half. Lewiston’s Pat Racine finished a long possession with a goal midway through the third quarter, and Rivet did likewise midway through the fourth.
Mt. Ararat’s (6-6) Nick Carter scored to make it 10-4 with two seconds remaining.
“Everyone was running a zone defense, so it really slowed the game down,” Mt. Ararat coach Matthew Haskell said. “They were playing with a lead, and we weren’t able to mount too many good offensive looks there to try to crack into it.”
Lewiston (8-4) begins the postseason next Tuesday, while the Eagles will await the final standings to find out their quarterfinal opponent.
The Blue Devils’ standing as the second-place team in Class A North was further solidified by Messalonskee’s loss to Gardiner on Tuesday. If Lewiston remains in second place, it will face Brunswick in the KVAC championship game Saturday.
The game was preceded by a ground-breaking ceremony on the field for the future Robert V. Connors Elementary School.
Don Roux Field will be turned into the parking lot for the new elementary school, and a new lacrosse/football field will be built elsewhere as part of the new Lewiston High School athletic complex.
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