By Kevin Mills,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – It was probably the last thing Lewiston wanted to do, but it was the first mistake the Blue Devils made Tuesday night.

Instead of trying to slow down Cheverus in the Class A state championship game, the Blue Devils watched the explosive Stags strike just 11 seconds into play. It was an uphill battle the rest of the way in a 5-2 loss.

“Obviously you want to come out and have a quick start to the game,” said Lewiston captain Tim Roy. “When it goes against you, it obviously sets you back a little bit. You’ve got a lot of time left in the game. You want to forget about that and keep going and play your game.”

Right off the opening face-off, the Stags won possession and skated swiftly into the offensive zone. Alex Arthur dished to his left for Sam Johnson, who one-timed it by Lewiston netminder Nick Langlais.

“We knew the first goal would be the biggest goal of the game,” said Arthur, who made it 2-0 at 2:56. “We took the wind right out of their sails. At that point, we knew we could do it.”

Lewiston had weathered a Bangor barrage in the Eastern A final and kept the Rams off the board. Lewiston was able to settle into its game and control the pace in the win over Bangor. Lewiston needed a similar, if not stronger defensive stand, against Cheverus, but it didn’t happen.

“Anytime you let a team score 11 seconds in, it’s puts you in a hole right from the beginning,” said Lewiston coach Tim Smith. “We’ve always played our best this year when we’ve kept teams off the board in the first period. We did that against some of the top teams. We did it against Bangor, and earlier in the year, we did it against Waterville.”

The nearly instant 1-0 lead had Cheverus dictating the game, and Lewiston was forced to try and keep up. The Blue Devils were scrambling for much of the first period and were outshot 8-1 at one point, 15-2 overall in the period.

“It hurt the morale probably more than the game plan,” said Roy. “When that happens, it’s always tough, but we tried our best to bounce back from it.”

Cheverus made it 2-0 when Adam Horgan sprung Arthur for a breakaway.

“We knew we had to take the momentum away from them,” said Arthur. “We were playing in their building in front of all their fans. We just knew we had to start off strong, and we did it.”

Smith says the early deficit wasn’t as much a factor as was the fact Cheverus had more intensity in that opening period. Though Lewiston tried to work the puck in deep and get its offense going, it was hard to counter a flying Cheverus team riding a wave of momentum.

Lewiston did managed a goal from Jon Roy at 5:58 and got a huge save by Langlais on an Arthur breakaway with 7:03 left in the period. The Blue Devils surge didn’t last long though. Kyle Beaulieu took the first of his three penalties in the game and gave Cheverus a power play. Horgan set up Bryan Lavoie for a 3-1 lead with 3:02 left in the period. Arthur scored on a wrister just 46 seconds into the second.

“After that happened, you could feel the tide change a little bit,” said Roy about the Blue Devils goal. “They came back and got one, and we were right back to square one.”

Cheverus built a 4-1 lead against St. Dom’s in the Western A final only to watch it disappear. The Stags made sure this lead stayed solid.

“We knew anybody could come back on us,” said Arthur. “We just had to play great team defense. We’re a good offensive team, but we knew we had to play great defense. We came out to play both ends of the ice.”