LEWISTON – With a short bench and less-than-favorable scouting report, the Mt. Ararat Eagles appeared to be a less-than-adequate opening-night opponent for the Lewiston High School Blue Devils.
Instead, the spirited, albeit short-staffed Eagles made a game of it before falling to Lewiston 4-1 in the first and only round of the Mac’s Grill Tournament at the Colisee Monday.
“We’re still young and it’s still early,” said Lewiston coach Norm Gagne.
The Eagles suffered an early blow and fell two goals back, but Jordan Bichrest pulled the underdogs within one at 2-1 midway through the second period to give Mt. Ararat a chance.
“In the second period, we started to get too fancy,” said Gagne. “We’re not a fancy hockey team and that’s what I tried to tell them after the second period. We have to get back to recognizing our game, and our game is to dump the puck and forecheck.”
The Blue Devils recovered later in the period on a Brandon Girardin goal, and Jordan Bourgoin logged an insurance goal in the third period to ice the game.
“The Blue Devils struck for two in the opening frame. Travis Lebrun notched the first goal of the game at 6:03 on a breakaway feed from Zack Blauvelt after Mt. Ararat’s best chance of the period nearly crept across the goal line behind Lewiston netminder Brian Nason.
“That was a great breakaway,” said Gagne. “He knew what he was going to do with the puck. A lot of times, when you get a breakaway, you become all thumbs there, but Travis knew what to do with it and he made a good move and slid it between the goalie’s legs.”
The Devils’ second score came on a wrist shot from the right side off the stick of freshman Robbie Leeman.
“I thought we started out really well,” said Gagne. “We played Lewiston hockey. We dumped the puck and put pressure on with our forecheck. We were working the puck, we were getting changes on the fly and keeping the puck in their end.”
After the pair of second-period goals, both teams began a parade to the penalty box, with Lewiston taking the lion’s share.
“We started to get away from our game and started to take some penalties,” said Gagne, “getting back to the same ol,’ same ol,’ that we have to get away from if we’re going to be a contender. I feel like if we’d played a St. Dom’s or a Cheverus tonight, we could have been on the short end of the stick again.”
The Eagles couldn’t capitalize on their chances, though, and went just 1-for-10 with an extra attacker. Lewiston finished 1-for-7 in that department.
Lewiston faces two tough road games later this week at Messalonskee and at Bangor.
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