Leah Dube is seemingly unstoppable at the moment.

The Lewiston junior forward scored a hat trick Wednesday in a 3-0 win over Edward Little/Leavitt/Poland for the North regional championship at Portland’s Troubh Ice Arena.

It’s the third-straight regional title for top-ranked Lewiston (16-2), the most recent state champion in 2020.

Dube and the rest of her teammates wanted to play one more game together.

“I think we are just connected as a team. We (couldn’t) make this our last game, we (needed) to make it to (Saturday) to have a chance to win the state championship,” Dube said.

Dube’s goals were the few chances the Blue Devils had all night.

“I think we had a little bit of advantage, not as far as shots, but possession,” Lewiston Coach Ron Dumont said. “We weren’t getting much early, (the Red Hornets) did a good job keeping us away from the critical areas. When we did get those chances, we were fortunate Leah Dube was on tonight.”

Red Hornets Coach Dana Berube said his girls played the best they could.

“(Lewiston) is a hell of a team and they proved that again,” Berube said. “I thought we did a lot of good things; it was a tough one to lose at this point of the year. But (we) have nothing to keep our heads down. (We) had a great season and (we) battled to the end tonight.”

The first ten minutes was a tight-checking matchup. Red Hornets goalie McKenzi Horton (14 saves) made a breakaway stop on Lewiston defenseman Lilly Gish in the middle of the first period.

Dube, who scored twice in a 10-1 semifinal win over St. Dom’s/Gray-New Gloucester/Winthrop/Monmouth, put the Blue Devils on top late in the first period.

First, she received a pass in the neutral zone from linemate Toree St. Hilare, split the two defenders at the blue line and fired a wrist shot past Horton.

Dube then picked the top-left corner from the slot with a minute to play in the period for a 2-0 lead.

Just 20 seconds into the second period, Dube’s slap shot from the right point found a hole and beat Horton.

“There’s nothing (Horton) could do on those (first) two goals, maybe she wants the last one back,” Berube said. “The way my team played and responded, obviously we wanted this one, I am happy for them (for the season we had). They should be proud of themselves.”

The second-seeded Red Hornets (11-6-2) had the first power play of the game in the middle of the second period but couldn’t produce much of a threat against Lewiston goalie Kim McLaughlin (eight saves).

Edward Little got another power play in the third period, but again Lewiston’s defense limited the Red Hornets’ chances.

“We just didn’t have a lot of offensive zone time. Lewiston, like us, got a lot of sticks in (passing and shooting) lanes,” Berube said. “That interrupted a lot of stuff.”

Lewiston will face Scarborough in the state championship game at 3 p.m. Saturday at Troubh. The team split their regular-season matchups. Lewiston suffered its first loss of the season against Scarborough, 4-2 on Dec. 15, but came back on Feb. 3 to defeat the Red Storm, 3-0.

Dumont will work on cleaning up a few things at practice the next two days.

“I told them I know I am an old nitpicker, but we still have things we still have to work on,” Dumont said. “We will prepare the best we can, but the clock is ticking now.”

Copy the Story Link

« Previous

The Cooper Flagg Show set for big stage in high school basketball tournament

Next »

Virtual Southwesterns meets set stage for swimming state championships