LEWISTON — To be continued.

In the first meeting of the season between rivals Lewiston and St. Dom’s on Tuesday, the only thing the teams figured out was that they each have a pretty darn good goaltender.

Nicole Keene stopped 42 of the 43 shots she faced for the Saints and Sarah Turner turned aside 18 of the 19 she saw in the Blue Devils’ cage as the rivals battled to a 1-1 deadlock.

“All things considered, this early in the season, we’re absolutely all right with a tie,” Lewiston coach Ron Dumont said. “No one is pushing the panic button.”

“For the start to the season we have on the schedule, to be where we are right now, we’re pretty happy,” St. Dom’s coach Don Boucher said. 

St. Dom’s and Lewiston each are 1-0-1, though the Saints’ road was a bit tougher. In their first game, they edged Biddeford 6-5. The Tigers and Blue Devils were the two state finalists last season.

Lewiston, meanwhile, plastered Brunswick 10-0 in its opener.

“It was tough to get into a flow that game, and our transitions were a bit slower,” Lewiston forward Sara Marden said. “It kind of carried over into this one.”

You wouldn’t have known it.

The Devils launched 17 shots on goal in the opening frame, and another 18 in the second. Keene held tough, allowing only a goal by Marden in the first period.

“This is how we knew she could play,” Boucher said of his keeper. “She just needed to relax and play her game. She came out and challenged the shooters tonight.”

The Saints, meanwhile, played so much defense early that they had a hard time getting to the Lewiston end. St. Dom’s tested Turner just three times in the opening frame.

On the team’s fourth shot, though, the Saints broke through as freshman Kayla McLellan slipped the puck past Turner on a breakaway.

Despite a heavy advantage in the shots department, the Blue Devils could sneak only one goal past Keene in the first frame, and that came early.

Marden camped out in front at the top of the crease and redirected a feed from the right corner by Taylor Teixeira through Keene’s legs.

“That’s something we just know what to do,” Marden said. “We’re close off the ice, and each shift we go out there and say, ‘This is our shift.”

A plethora of penalties followed, providing each squad with two chances on the power play. Neither converted, though Lewiston dominated play both on the power play and shorthanded.

The Saints broke through early in the second. On just her team’s fourth shot on goal of the game, Kayla McLellan slipped through the defense and went in on Turner alone. She faked a shot, slid right and then fired the puck past Turner’s blocker, squeezing it between her arm and her body.

Lewiston went back to work on Keene, eclipsing by one its shot total from the first period, but Keene didn’t budge.

At the other end, Turner finally had a reason to come up with some big saves. With the Saints on a 5-on-3 power play for nearly two minutes, a series of shots found their way through to Turner. On one shot, Turner needed a full-out dive and a bit of luck to corral the loose puck in the crease.

Neither team managed a goal in the third, with both goalies again coming up big when they needed to.

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