By Justin Pelletier,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – For a second straight game, Edward Little managed to put a bit of a scare into the Lewiston faithful.

At 3:33 of the first period, the Eddies scored the first goal of the game on their first shot, and the Blue Devils were in a hole.

Seven goals later, it was Edward Little staring up from what may as well have been the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Sophomore Matt Letourneau notched a natural hat trick in a 1:46 span of the second period, freshman Robbie Leeman had two goals and an assist and sophomore Jon Roy added two goals as the Blue Devils unleashed a ruthless offensive attack at the Colisee on Wednesday, beating up their cross-river rivals by a score of 8-3.

“I’m just so proud of that yellow line, the way they came out and played tonight,” said Lewiston coach Norm Gagne, referring to the line on which Leeman, Letourneau and Casey Poussard play. “They’ve been our checking line all year and it turned into a scoring line tonight.”

“I had one goal all year,” said Letourneau. “To score triple that total tonight was great.

It was Lewiston’s second consecutive lopsided win over EL, and the win also gave the Blue Devils possession of the Skelton, Taintor and Abbott Cup, awarded each year to the Lewiston/Auburn Class A school with the best record among the three schools. This year, Lewiston was 3-0-1 in their four games.

The bigger picture for Lewiston, though, is chasing down the top spot in the Eastern Maine standings. Lewiston was last sitting in third place behind Brunswick and Waterville.

“We would like to finish as high as we can,” said Gagne. “I hope we can finish strong and go into the playoffs with a lot of momentum, because I think that’s the key. It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. We got off to a rocky start this season, but right now we’re starting to come on.”

Edward Little, meanwhile, sits in eighth in the East, and needs at least two wins to even have a chance to make this year’s tournament.

“We have to win two out of three,” said EL coach Craig Latuscha. “It’s that simple. If we don’t do that, we don’t make the playoffs.”

The Eddies’ effort Wednesday, though, left Latuscha scratching his head.

“I don’t know what else we can do,” said Latuscha. “We gave up, that was it.”

EL avoided the slow start and scored first, sending a silent shudder through the fans on the Lewiston side of the rink. Chris Carver tipped a Kevin Smith pass from the left circle short side on Lewiston starter Brian Nason on the Eddies’ first shot of the game at 3:33 to put EL ahead 1-0.

“For the first time all year we came out, got the first goal and had the lead,” said Latuscha. “I was surprised and excited when we came out on top like that, but after that we didn’t want it. They wanted it more than we did.”

“When you don’t come out ready to play, the longer it goes, the longer its a close game, the more chance there is we end up on the short end of the stick,” said Gagne.

Lewiston then took three consecutive penalties, and the Eddies applied steady pressure on a lengthy 5-on-3, but couldn’t solve Nason or the Lewiston defense.

From there it was all Lewiston as the Blue Devils rattled off 12 consecutive shot on net and held the Eddies without a shot for the rest of the frame. Along the way, Leeman potted two goals and Roy added another to put Lewiston ahead 3-1.

“The first on I had a 2-on-1 with Poussard,” said Leeman. “He must have seen me out of the corner of his eye and he just chipped it up and I was all alone, and on the second one, I was skating right off the bench and the same thing, Poussard found me coming in.”

In the second, Travis Lebrun notched a goal just 26 seconds into the frame, and Letourneau followed with his hat trick. Roy finished off the five-goal barrage to start the second at 4:29 with a wrist shot, putting the Blue Devils ahead 8-1.

Cam Robichaud put up a pair of goals, one in the second and another in the third, to give the Eddies their final two goals of the night.