By Justin Pelletier,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – The young St. Dom’s defense should have been tired, playing its third game in as many nights. The speedy forwards should have been out of gas after getting home at 11:30 Tuesday night, and the starting netminder, Brady Blackman, could have had some rust after getting the previous night off.

Instead, the defensive unit held tough enough to allow Blackman some freedom with his rebounds, and the forwards got going late in the third period to neutralize a strong Cheverus team as St. Dom’s won its third straight game, 3-1 over the Cheverus Stags in rematch of last year’s Western Class A final.

“We started out real sluggish and sloppy,” said St. Dom’s coach John Pleau, “but they just kept going and kept going and stayed with our game.”

Tyler Martin was the hero on offense for the Saints as he finished off his hat trick with a shot that would make a pool shark grin – a bank shot off the side boards in his defensive zone that slid 150 feet into the empty net to cinch the victory in the third period.

“They were pressuring us hard down low with their 6-on-5,” said Martin. “I took a slapshot to get it out of the zone because there was so much congestion on that board I was just hoping it would hit somebody and get out of the zone. I got lucky, it went off the board and went in. Hey, I’ll take it.”

After dominating the first two periods, though, the Stags (5-2-1) found themselves down 2-1 to the opportunistic Saints

“We were having a hard time in the first two periods with the off-wing and our third guy high in the offensive zone was getting sucked down deep and we weren’t coming back,” said Cheverus coach Jack Lowry. “We weren’t paying the price backchecking, we weren’t picking up the trailers and that killed us.”

In the third, Cheverus got a few more chances, and overall the Stags outshot the Saints 41-21, but Blackman continued to stop the initial shots and the defense smothered the rebound attempts.

“I think we took a step backwards (in the third),” said Lowry. “We were outshooting them 3-to-1 after two periods, and I think the difference in tonight’s game was Blackman. We also started pressing a little bit too hard in the third and came out of our game plan.”

Alex Arthur put the Stags ahead at 4:22 of the first period when he deked St. Dom’s defender Jeff Lewandowski to the ice and slid into the high slot unopposed. Arthur fired a wrist shot that beat Blackman between the pads.

Martin got his first goal of the night on a nifty feed from Tom Gosselin on a rush after a Cheverus turnover at center ice to even the score five minutes later, and the Saints took the lead for the first time at 4:23 of the second when Martin jammed a rebound on a Gosselin wraparound attempt past Cheverus goalie Casey Cox.