LEWISTON – Mt. Ararat kept it close for a while, but Edward Little just had too much.

After playing two sloppy periods and allowing the Eagles to hang around into the third, the Red Eddies exploded for two goals in the first four minutes of the final frame to pull out a 5-1 win over Mt. Ararat at the Colisee on Saturday.

The win advances Edward Little to its second straight Eastern Maine final, and third in four years. It is also the second time in as many years that EL will face Lewiston, which won its game in overtime Saturday.

“We didn’t expect to be able to dominate them like the last time we played them,” EL coach Jamie Belleau said. “I think they played a good game against us.”

Colby Gilbert and Kyle Smith led EL with three points each, including two goals apiece, and Kris Bennett made 15 saves, including stopping a pair of early breakaways to lead the Red Eddies. Mert Gould also played a solid game on the blue line and contributed three points.

Despite the win, and the relatively lopsided third period, the Red Eddies were less than happy with their performance Saturday.

“We are going to have to play better in our next game, especially in our defensive end,” Belleau said. “We worked on some things in practice, but in a slower game like this, it was hard.”

For the Eagles, Kris Morgan held tough between the pipes for two periods, making 17 saves on the game.

The only goal of the first period caused a stir on the Mt. Ararat bench, but ultimately gave EL a 1-0 lead.

Three Eddies crashed the net after a shot by Gould. As Gilbert bore down on Morgan, the puck became lost in a sea of skates. The whistle never blew and the puck sat at the edge of the crease near the right post. Finally, Gilbert found it and knocked it home. The red light never lit up behind the net, but the two officials conferred and agreed that it was, in fact, a goal.

For the Eagles, two players had breakaways against Bennett out of the four shots in the period, and the EL goalie was equal to the task both times, first at 4:50 on a Drew Erickson attempt, and again at 6:30 on a Matt Snider chance.

“He’s gone kind of unnoticed this season,” Belleau said of Bennett. “With the season we had, it’s been easy to overlook him, but he has gone deep in the playoffs two years straight now and he’s been solid when we’ve needed him to be.”

In the second, EL started to open up its offense, although play continued to be sloppy.

Gould capitalized on a power play on a great individual play, wrapping a shot around from left to right behind the net and tucking it just underneath Morgan’s pads.

The Red Eddies made it 3-0 at 6:26 when Gilbert notched his second of the game when his shot glanced off of Morgan’s blocker, hit the top of the cross bar and bounced off Morgan again and into the net.

The Eagles didn’t back away, though, and made it a two-goal game before intermission when Robbie Bichrest fired a wrist shot by Bennett while down a skater.

jpelletier@sunjournal.com

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