LEWISTON – Jason Lachance’s eyes grew wide as he watch a second rebound pop onto his stick.

“It was pretty intense,” said Lachance. “I was pretty tired coming up at the end, but we saw a couple seconds left and we had a couple of chances and we had to do what we had to do to put it away.”

The Brunswick senior banged the puck into the net behind St. Dom’s goalie Nate Brown with 2.5 seconds left to play in regulation to lift the Dragons to a 4-3 win over the Saints at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Friday. The power play goal capped a pair of comebacks for Brunswick, first from 2-0 down and then from 3-2.

“The same thing happened to us last year when we were playing St. Dom’s in this tournament,” said Lachance. “We were losing 3-0 at the end of the first in that one and came back to win. We skate a lot during practice, and it paid off in the third period tonight.”

Brown, meanwhile, had done everything in his power to preserve what he could for St. Dom’s.

“It’s pretty easy to stay in the game when you’re getting a lot of shots like that,” said the Saints’ senior keeper. “I knew they’d come out firing. I remember the shot from the point, I got it with my glove and then the rebound came back and I got it with my pad. Two-and-a-half seconds, it’s kind of a heartbreaker here.”

The goal was Lachance’s second of the period. His first, at 9:31 and also on a power play, this time on a wrap-around attempt from the right side of the net.

“I was at the end of my shift trying to get as much out of it as I could,” said Lachance. “I saw the D back off of it, so I skated around the net and tried to shove it five-hole and it went in.”

The Saints looked like they would dominate early.

“Clearly they outplayed us the first 10 minutes,” said Brunswick coach Dave Boucher. “It was a much faster team that we played tonight than last night (Cheverus) and we weren’t quite ready for that.”

“We took off where we left off last night (against Lewiston),” said St. Dom’s coach John Pleau. “A couple of penalties killed the momentum. We let them back into the game and that was it.”

Alex Tyburski got the Saints on the board early when he finished a 2-on-1 down low with Sheldon Roy on the left post. Dustin Oberlander followed with his first of the season at 6:03, and Brunswick appeared to be shell-shocked.

But Blaine Cardali changed that with a short-handed goal late in the period.

“Cardali’s shorthanded goal gave us the momentum we needed,” said Boucher. “Coming in at 2-1 instead of 2-0 was big.”

Both teams struggled with penalties in the second period, but Brunswick goaltender Matt Pellerin saw the bulk of the action.

“Matt Pellerin won the game for us,” said Boucher. “He kept us right in this game early and through the second period through all the man-downs.”

Cardali struck again in the second to even the score on a shot that beat Brown 5-hole after Josh Aldred found the speedy Brunswick forward alone in the low slot.

Freshman Jacob Rutt notched his first goal of the regular season at 13:30 of the middle frame with St. Dom’s on a 5-on-3 power play to put the Saints back in front.

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