By Justin Pelletier,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Turnovers and bad decision-making combined with a bad night on offense will bury most hockey teams.

Add those circumstances to a game against defending state champion Cheverus, and Lewiston High School never had a chance.

Bolstered by a tight, but convincing win over the Blue Devils last week, the Stags made a few adjustments that worked perfectly as they rolled into the Colisee on Wednesday and skated away with a 4-0 win.

“We put some some good pressure on in the third, but we only had two shots in the second,” said Lewiston coach Norm Gagne. “We just got out-played. Cheverus, they played well.”

One of the bigger adjustments Cheverus coach Jack Lowry and his staff made was to eliminate the Blue Devils’ presence between the circles in the Cheverus zone. Lewiston managed just 15 shots all night, most of which came from beyond 20 feet.

“We focused a lot on defense,” said Lowry. “We told the forwards before the game we wanted them to stay in the zone when we had control of the puck. We wanted them to check the front of the net first, and then go out and open the ice up. We also focused a lot tonight on forechecking, and forechecking hard. I think we forced them into a lot of icing situations with that aggressive forecheck.”

For Lewiston, the loss comes on the heels of a big win over Portland on Monday, where the team thought it might have found an answer to it early-season offensive woes.

“I thought we had some decent shots tonight,” said Gagne, “but it seemed every shot we took was either hitting one of our guys or one of their guys, bouncing off to the corner or bouncing off for a breakout. There were times we should have shot and we passed, and other times we should have passed when we shot. We were all thumbs, there.”

The third period was by far the Blue Devils’ best effort, with five quality shots against Cheverus netminder Casey Cox. Early in the frame, Cox made the save of the game, a flopping stick save on Lewiston forward Jordan Bourgoin.

“I meant to make the paddle save,” said a sheepish Cox, who, after he looked at the ground, looked up and rolled his eyes. “No, I actually had trouble seeing the puck most of the night. I lost that one and all of a sudden the puck’s up there and it’s like, uh-oh, I’d better get over there. It was desperation at that point.”

“Good goaltenders make good things happen and get some bounces sometimes,” added Lowry, “and Casey’s been one of the backbones for us this year.”

On the other end, Lewiston goaltender Brian Nason saw 31 shots, and two of the Stags’ four goals came on turnovers.

“That kid play net, I’ll tell you what,” said Lowry. “He’s probably one of the most impressive high school goalies I’ve seen in a long time. He has quickness, he handles the puck well. he made a couple of glove saves tonight, and the breakaway save he had on Alex Arthur was just incredible.”

Arthur had the only goal of a sloppy and chippy first period and it came while the Stags were short-handed.

With a 4-on-3, Lewiston forward Travis Lebrun turned the puck over to Arthur at his own blue line. The Cheverus sniper still had one man to beat in defenseman Zack Blauvelt, but the gap was wide enough where Arthur just wound up and fired a wrister to the short side, beating a surprised Nason for the 1-0 lead.

“I saw he left his stick open so I just threw my stick out there,” said Arthur. “I happened that he was making a cross-over and hit the puck right through his legs. I knew then if I tried to go in a make a move, the defenseman might just take me out, so I tried to use the defenseman as a screen and pick a spot.”

Lewiston was a bigger loser through the rest of the period, though, having failed to capitalize on a 5-minute major to Cheverus defenseman Paul Morrison. In all, the Blue Devils went 0-for-5 on the power play in the first frame.

Things got worse for the Blue Devils in the second period. Not only did they only get two shots on net and go 0-for-2 on the power play, but they allowed the Stags to jump ahead by three goals.

Sam Johnson collected a goal at 8:43 of the second frame when he picked off a clearing attempt with what appeared to be a high stick. The whistle never blew and Johnson went in on Nason, deked him to the ice and slid the puck through his pads to put his team ahead 2-0.

B.J. Henegan made it 3-0 31 seconds later with a shot that hit Nason in the elbow, bounced into the air and landed on his back, bouncing into the net behind him while he searched for the puck.

“When they got that third goal, we just lost our composure,” said Gagne.

Lewiston has a few days to regroup before facing St. Dom’s for a second time in two weeks on Saturday.