LEWISTON – The other bench wasn’t occupied by Lewiston, Cheverus or Edward Little in its Kyle Smith and Colby Gilbert heyday.

Scarborough brought out the best and worst in St. Dom’s as naturally as any time-tested rival Monday night at Androscoggin Bank Colisee. And given the intensity of the Saints’ third-period comeback and the volume of their exultation after a 5-4 Western Class a boys’ hockey victory, anybody might have assumed the hosts had just pocketed a playoff win.

St. Dom’s (4-3) scored three goals in a span of just over 10 minutes to outlast Scarborough (5-2).

C.J. Bergeron applied the exclamation point with 1:52 remaining in regulation, chasing down his own rebound and stuffing home his second goal of the night and give the on-again, off-again Saints a sorely needed victory over a top-tier opponent.

“We lost to Bangor on Saturday night. Scarborough was in first place, so that’s going to help a lot,” said Bergeron, one of six St. Dom’s seniors.

Bergeron also notched the equalizer with 9:25 left, assisted by Richard Paradis.

Paradis potted his team-leading eighth of the season, short-handed, to trigger the comeback.

“I don’t think Richard Paradis took more than one break in the third period,” said St. Dom’s coach Steve Ouellette. “We called our timeout for Richard.”

Scarborough wasted leads of 2-0, 3-1 and 4-2.

The Red Storm appeared to be in the driver’s seat after punctuating a flood of 5-on-3 and 5-on-4 penalty kills with its own power-play goal. Sophomore Brett Leighton did the honors with 44 seconds to play in the middle stanza.

“I said, ‘How many goals do we need to win? We don’t need anymore. We just need to play smart and calm down.’ To do what we did is not good,” said Scarborough co-coach Norm Gagne, who resigned the top job at Lewiston last summer. “We’re young. We lost our composure a little bit, and they took advantage of it. You’ve got to tip your hat to a team that was down like they were and able to come back.”

Paradis brought the Saints within a goal at 2:52 while freshman teammate Spencer Martin was in the penalty box.

“It gave us momentum back, and we just started flying after that,” Bergeron said.

Fifty-six penalty minutes slowed the game to a crawl, inciting the ire of both coaches.

Scarborough was whistled for a pair of minors for too many men on the ice. Multiple unsportmanslike conduct penalties and hooking and interference calls created as much 4-on-3 and 4-on-4 time as full strength sequences throughout.

“We worked through all the obstacles. Unfortunately for both teams, we were fighting against something I don’t think we should have been fighting against,” Ouellette said. “(The officials) have got to realize that kids play with emotion. This is hockey.”

Jake Rutt – now in his second season with Scarborough after suiting up for St. Dom’s as a freshman – scored on the power play in the first period. Neil Ravin gave the Storm a 2-0 lead.

Rutt answered Casey Parker’s goal to make it 3-1 at 3:54 of the second.

Joe Klemanski cashed in assists from Parker and Matt Lamare for St. Dom’s lone power-play strike and a 3-2 deficit. The Saints were 1-for-14 with an odd number in their favor.

“We stuck with it. In between periods, their attitude is what was pulling them through,” Ouellette said. “It’s going to give us confidence. We’ve been close. We had one big win against Lewiston. To beat somebody else and do it in our conference is just huge. It puts us right back up in the mix with anybody.”