LEWISTON – Considering the kind of season the Lewiston Blue Devils are having, they’ve greeted any sliver of good news with wide open arms. When that news comes in the form of a win, it’s that much better.

Casey Poussard potted a pair of goals and Jordan Bourgoin and Jonathan Roy had a goal and an assist each to lead Lewiston to a 9-4 win over Mt. Ararat at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Wednesday night.

“It’s big. It’s very big,” Lewiston coach Norm Gagne said. “We needed to change the momentum of this team.”

The Blue Devils have struggled through the first half of the season, and Wednesday’s victory was just Lewiston’s fourth in 12 tries this season.

That’s not to say the Blue Devils haven’t been in some close games, though. Three losses have come with goals in the final seconds of play, including two to Western power Scarborough.

“We’ve had some good games, but we’re making mistakes at crunch time,” Gagne said. “Hopefully we’ll carry a little of this momentum into Saturday.”

Lewiston squares off against St. Dom’s this Saturday at the Colisee.

Mt. Ararat, meanwhile, continues to struggle.. The Eagles played with just 13 skaters and one goalie Wednesday night, but managed to make a game of it through two periods.

After getting shelled for 18 shots in the opening frame, Mt. Ararat held the Blue Devils (4-7) to just three shots in the second while taking four against Zack Plourd.

“We try to stop the bleeding, hold them off at first,” Mt. Ararat coach Mike Abreu said. “Right now, we have to try and keep the scores down.”

The Eagles’ first tally came after a spurt of three Lewiston goals early, off the stick of Ian Messier, who slammed home a Tyler Hitchcock rebound.

But that only sliced so far into that three-goal lead.

Poussard started the Blue Devils’ first-period onslaught with a goal 2:28 into the game. Justin Nadeau added a goal on a slap shot from the left circle, and Matt Letourneau extended the lead to 3-0 at 4:37.

Poussard struck again on a controversial call at 12:15 of the second frame, on just the Blue Devils’ second shot of the period. Poussard wristed the puck at the net from in close. Officials blew the play dead when they lost sight of the puck underneath Mt. Ararat goalie Justin Stimpson. When Stimpson got up, the puck was underneath him, but also across the goal line, and officials ruled the play a goal.

“That was a momentum-breaker right there,” Abreu said. “That still should never have been called a goal.”

Robbie Leeman, Andrew Marden, Bourgoin, Roy and Craig Sirois added goals in a see-saw third period for Lewiston, while Kyle Murphy and Hitchcock combined for three more for the Eagles.

jpelletier@sunjournal.com


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