By Kevin Mills,Staff Writer

BRUNSWICK – It was the last thing Peter Gardner expected, and the last thing Mike McGraw wanted to see Saturday.

The Lewiston boys’ soccer team had fallen behind 3-0 in a regular-season loss to Brunswick. In an Eastern A quarterfinal rematch, the Blue Devils were hoping to avoid a similar fate, but a couple of quick strikes helped the Dragons build another 3-0 lead in the opening half. Brunswick continued its winning ways against Lewiston with a 4-0 victory.

“If we can prevent ourselves from having such a bad start against Brunswick, I think things could be different,” said McGraw, whose Blue Devils have a long history of frustration, and losing, to the Dragons. “For some reason, we don’t start out well. We start out slow. We have all along. Brunswick’s a good team. It’s a match that is on their side right now. It just sickens me because we’re so much better when we play our game. We let them play their game, and when you play their game, they’re good at their game.”

Corey Underwood had two goals and an assist for third-ranked Brunswick (14-1). P.J. Burnette had a goal and an assist while Matt Veilleux earned a pair of assists. Brunswick outshot Lewiston 10-0 in the first half.

“It’s almost a carbon copy,” said Gardner, the veteran Brunswick coach. “It was 3-0 at halftime in the first match. I didn’t expect that to happen. I thought they would try to mark up on P.J., but he’s so versatile and so quick in the box. He has a sense in the goal. He always puts himself in position to put pressure on. When you put pressure on, it creates problems for them.”

Brunswick threatened early and scored on its first shot of the game. The ball bounced around in front, and Underwood settled the loose ball and steered it into the left side of the net just 3:24 into the game.

“In the fourth minute, that was huge,” said Underwood. “When you get a goal, I’ve been there, the other team gets down on themselves. If you put them away early, you’re going to put them away the whole game.”

The Dragons struck again at 5:31. A Veilleux cross bounced off the chest of Kit Smith and lofted over the outstretched hand of Lewiston keeper Brian Nason.

“Getting the goal early and building on it and from past performance, it took a little wind out of their sails,” said Gardner.

“Then we came right back and scored another one three or four minutes after.”

Burnette made it 3-0 with 23:06 left in the half. He whirled around and fired a low, hard shot inside the right post.

“He turned and fired the ball into the back of the net,” said Gardner. “A goalie’s not going to save that. You don’t really see that turn. We work on that. It’s kind of nice to see them do some of the things you work on.”

Sixth-seeded Lewiston (11-4-1) made some adjustments to create better matchups in the second half and had some success getting some scoring opportunities. Husayn Carnegie and Jake Theriault each had shots on goal to test Brunswick keeper Tommy Williams. The Blue Devils’ best bid came with 26:33 left when a Carnegie header hit the crossbar.

“What we were looking for was to break it open by scoring a goal,” said McGraw. “Then we’d see what happened. If we scored one, we’d open the door for a second one, but we didn’t score.”

Nason did his part to keep Brunswick off the board further. He kicked away a breakaway bid by Ryan

Flanagan and had another point-blank stop on Chris Sawyer. Underwood made it 4-0 with 22:26 left. He got behind the defense and avoided a charging Nason and put the ball into an open goal.

“We’ve been practicing all week and coach has been emphasizing that you have to keep on winning,” said Underwood. “Most of the kids are seniors. So this could be their last game. So we played like we’re not going to get beat.”