LEWISTON — Lewiston senior captain Travis LeBrun has never been the biggest player on his hockey team. In fact, in Maine high school hockey, he might be among the five shortest players, but that didn’t stop him from providing the biggest screen of his career Saturday night at the Colisee.
LeBrun stepped in front of Bangor netminder Josh Seeley just as fellow senior Kevin LeBlanc lofted a slapshot from the high slot toward the top left corner of the net.
“I couldn’t see at all,” said Seeley. “Someone stepped out in front at the last second. I saw it coming down the side, but after he turned to pass back, I lost it.”
LeBlanc’s shot found its way through traffic and past Seeley at 4:05 of overtime to lift Lewiston to a 2-1 win over the Rams in the Eastern Class A semifinal at the Colisee.
“When I was coming in for the shot, I saw the left corner wide open,” said LeBlanc. “I just took that shot when I saw it.”
Lewiston will now play in its fifth consecutive Eastern Class A final at the Cumberland County Civic Center on Tuesday.
“I told the kids before, the last two years they’d put (Bangor) out of the tournament,” said Lewiston coach Norm Gagne. “They’re going to have a little more initiative wanting to come back at us, a little more oomph in their sails. I told them we had to come out with a stubbornness and say Hey, you’re not going to beat us in our house.'”
LeBlanc’s chance to shoot at all came thanks to sophomore Jordan Bourgoin, who managed to draw two defenders to the right circle before passing back to LeBlanc.
“I was out in the neutral zone,” said LeBlanc. “As soon as I saw Jordan was going to pass back, I started to come into the zone.”
The teams split their regular-season meetings, with each winning on the road by way of a shutout.
“I knew it was going to be a one-goal game,” said Bangor coach Ted Taylor. “These teams are that close.”
Bangor, which finishes the season at 13-8, ends a successful campaign that started with a new coach, and with its two star players from last season, Nick Payson and Aaron Buzzell, gone.
“Most people were thinking we’d finish about .500,” said Taylor. “To lose two guys like that, and we got off to a slow start, but we had 11 seniors on the team, the kids never gave up.”
Picking up most of the scoring slack was Dylan George, but the Blue Devils (14-6-2) managed to shut the sniper down, especially on the power play, where the Rams were 0-for-5.
“They were just dumping the puck and chasing, and we couldn’t handle it,” said George. “We had to keep chasing it behind us and it wore us out.”
The Rams and Devils both had solid chances to score in the first period despite the limited number of shots (8-6 in favor of Bangor).
At 4:55, Bangor captain Mike McPike rang a shot off the right post, and just more than a minute later, LeBrun answered with a breakaway, only to have his efforts thwarted by Seeley.
Nothing changed on the scoreboard in the second, though Bangor had more than a minute with a 5-on-3.
“That was big,” said Gagne. “I think they only had two or three scoring chances on that 5-on-3, and we did a real good job of gritting it out.”
In the third, the squads traded goals 29 seconds apart. Lewiston struck first when Brandon Girardin stuffed a rebound past Seeley at 4:15. Christian Dionne responded with a shot from the right circle that squeezed past Nason.
Comments are no longer available on this story