By Justin Pelletier,Staff Writer

LEWISTON- File this one under O’ for “ouch.”

In just its second game of the regular season against a team picked to finish in the middle of the pack in Western Class A, St. Dom’s struggled to find any kind of rhythm and fell at home to Portland 2-1 in front of a sparse crowd at the Colisee.

“We came out flat,” said St. Dom’s coach John Pleau. “There was no intensity. We started playing well in the third period, but this is uncharacteristic of us.”

The win is the first in Lewiston against St. Dom’s for Portland in more than 20 years.

“We’ve come up with other teams with some more skill,” admitted Portland coach Paul Evans, “and we’ve tied a couple of times, but to bring 15 skaters up with a lot of guys playing different roles they’ve never been in before, it’s just great to see.”

Ray Quatrucci played solidly between the pipes when he had to, making 16 saves to earn the victory. On the other end, the Portland offense was a thorn in the Saints’ side all night despite missing the net on several chances. Goaltender Nate Brown, in for regular starter Brady Blackman, saw 17 shots and turned 15 aside.

“There were a couple of things that could have been some distractions for (Quatrucci) tonight,” said Evans, “with a couple of kids out of the lineup, but he was great right off the bat and kept us in there. He had kind of a shaky start there in that Scarborough game (Portland lost 7-0), but the last two games he’s been real solid for us. He’s got to be our best player for us to have a chance this year.”

Scott Karobkin and Sam Guimond each scored for Portland, with Guimond’s second-period tally counting as the winning goal.

“Both of the goals were really good goals,” said Pleau. “We just didn’t work hard enough to get those back.”

The Saints’ first line of Tom Gosselin, Tyler Martin and Alex Tyburski, which had accounted for nearly six goals per game through the team’s exhibition schedule and their one previous league contest, managed just one goal Wednesday, and that came on the power play.

“They’ve been unstoppable,” said Pleau, “but tonight they were snakebitten. I think they were frustrated after the first period and they didn’t have enough composure to snap out of it.”

Portland and its fans had plenty to smile about in the first period and, as it turned out, never had to stop grinning. Karobkin fired a slap shot from the right point that found its way through traffic and past Brown to give the Bulldogs a 1-0 edge.

The Saints’ biggest bright spot in the first period was killing off a five-minute major penalty to Codie Keene, who was tossed for cross checking, as well as two other minors. Portland didn’t take a penalty in the opening frame.

“We can’t win a game from the penalty box,” said Pleau.

“We had the breaks and we had the calls go our way,” said Evans. “We’ll take them going into Christmas break.”

In the second period, despite a few more chances, neither team found the net with any consistency. Still, the Bulldogs extended their lead at 6:14 of the middle frame when Sam Guimond blew by St. Dom’s defenseman Jeff Lewandowski on the left side and burned Brown with a backhand deke.

Gosselin managed the Saints’ lone goal at 4:05 of the final frame when he beat Quatrucci from a sharp angle with a pile of players in front.

“There were a couple of situation where we got lucky I think, with a post or two and a couple of pucks that rolled off a couple of sticks,” said Evans, “but you have to have that if you’re going to play the underdog and pull an upset.”