LEWISTON — All it took was a little bit of eye contact, and a certain familiarity that comes with playing alongside someone long enough.

In less time than it takes most people to form a complete sentence, Bangor cashed in with a pair of goals at the tail end of a barrage of shots and then hung on against a furious St. Dom’s rally in the closing minutes of the game as the Rams skated out of Lewiston with a 3-2 win over the Saints at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

“I was talking with my assistant coach, and he’s been at this for 10 years and he can’t remember ever beating St. Dom’s in this building,” Bangor coach Ted Taylor said. “It’s been a while. But we’ve had four good games now, one bad period four games ago, but we’ve done well the last three.”

On this day, Taylor’s top pair of players made things happen in a hurry when it mattered most.

Joey Seccareccia converted on the Rams’ eighth shot attempt of the period to put the visitors on top by a goal when he poked the puck through a crowd at the right post. On the ensuing faceoff, he poked the puck to Phil Frost, who split the defense, deked the goalie to the ice and scored again, just six seconds after the first one, to put Bangor on top by two.

“We knew we had to come out firing in the second period,” Frost said. “Joe did a great job getting to the net on the first one, and then coming off the faceoff, we talked and Joe went straight forward and just gave me a perfect feed.”

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“Defense has to come first, that’s all I can say,” St. Dom’s coach Steve Ouellette said. “Second goal, they have a guy who goes right in between two defensemen. That should never have happened. That was the story of the night.” 

After a scoreless first period during which both teams looked out of sorts, the Rams shot out of the gate in the second. Joey Seccareccia tested St. Dom’s goalie Charest on a breakaway bid just 2:30 into the frame, and Connor Griffin fired a point-blank snapper from the left circle two minutes later as part of a 7-0 run of Bangor shots on goal to get things rolling. Charest stood tall, keeping the game knotted at 0-0.

“He played a very good game, we were very pleased with the goaltending tonight,” St. Dom’s coach Steve Ouellette said.

The Rams continued to dominate the Saints through the middle part of the period after their two tallies, and only when there were fewer than 180 ticks left on the clock did St. Dom’s get any kind of pressure. Then, with less than a second to play, St. Dom’s got the boost it was looking for when Nate Bergeron jammed a third-chance rebound past Bangor keeper Zach Hamilton at the right post. The horn sounded, but officials declared the puck had already crossed the line.

In the third, Frost struck again on a giveaway in the Saints’ zone. He bore down on Charest, who finished with 36 saves, and roofed the puck into the top corner over his glove.

St. Dom’s turned a similar turnover on the other end into a goal as Dakota Keene beat Hamilton high blocker from the left side. The Saints had a couple of chances late in the game with the goalie pulled, but Hamilton and the Bangor defense kept the Saints off the board the rest of the way.


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