LEWISTON — It wasn’t the dominating win rival Lewiston posted, and the game play was far more physical that they’d faced in most games this season, but the St. Dom’s Saints successfully survived a post-rivalry game hangover on Monday, posting a goal per period and then some as Austin Christopher made 24 saves to earn his fourth win of the season, a 4-1 victory over a game and physical Bangor squad at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

“It’s Bangor, everyone seems to be made out of tree trunks and are eight feet tall,” St. Dom’s coach Steve Ouellette said. “They’re always physically strong, they always hit, and it’s one of those teams, you know what’s coming and you have to be ready for it.”

The Rams have played all of their competition tough this season, but have had a hard time securing wins in those games. They’ve suffered setbacks to Lewiston, Brewer, Houlton-Hodgdon and Waterville.

“We’ve outshot a lot of our opponents this season, and we just can’t seem to bury the puck in the net,” Bangor coach Denis Collins said. “With this team’s speed, and they’re skilled as well, it’s tough to overcome that. I still think it was a good game for us today, because we accomplished a lot in this game that we hadn’t been doing.”

The Saints, meanwhile, now have seven wins against just two losses — both to Lewiston.

Christopher, thrust into the everyday starter’s role as fellow sophomore Grant Carrier recovers from an injury, played one of his better games of the season in his 24-save effort.

“I really feel like I have two No. 1 goalies here right now,” Ouellette said, “and right now, Austin’s able to get those extra games because of the situation and he’s taking full advantage of it.”

“Unless you put high-quality shots on him, they’re not going to go by,” Collins said. “He did a fantastic job.”

In an as-expected physical opening period, the Saints gave up more opportunities than they’d wanted to, and they took fewer shots than they’d hoped to take against Chris Howat.

But they came out ahead on the scoreboard, anyway.

After a tussle in the corner, Danny Nadeau emerged from the scrum, glided across the lower left circle and snapped a shot toward Howat. The Bangor junior tried to squeeze the puck between his arm and his body, but only got a piece of it and it trickled through and into the back of the cage for a 1-0 St. Dom’s advantage.

Kyle Holtet and Spencer Martin figured in on the assists on Nadeau’s tally.

Bangor had its best opportunities to score on a power play in the middle part of the period, but Christopher was solid, stopping all nine shots he face in the frame, including three on the Rams’ man advantage.

“In the first, most of their shorts weren’t necessarily coming on odd-man rushes,” Ouellette said. “We gave up a few shots I wish we wouldn’t have, but overall, I thought we did pretty well keeping them to the outside.”

The pattern held in the early part of the second. Bangor got three quick shots on Christopher to the Saints’ one on Howat, but that one was enough for the Saints to double their lead. Alex Parker picked off a clearing attempt at the blue line, drew a pair of defenders and dropped the puck to trailer Dakota Keene, who wristed the puck low through a screen set by Cody Rodrigue and through Howat to put the home team on top 2-0.

The teams battled scoreless through the rest of the frame. The Saints couldn’t capitalize on their power-play opportunity in the second after a penalty to Bangor’s Phil Frost revealed the Rams’ coaches had forgotten to put the senior on the game roster, resulting in a two-minute bench minor.

St. Dom’s made it 3-0 in the third when Keene added his second of the game two seconds after a 5-on-3 had expired on a loose puck in front.

Bangor broke up Christopher’s shutout bid with 5:15 to play when Frost snapped a shot high glove on a breakaway. Alex Parker added a goal with less than a minute to play, four seconds after a 5-on-4 power play had expired, to cap the scoring.

“This could have easily been a let-down game if the kids hadn’t been skating,” Ouellette said, “but I think the kids brought their skating legs today. It could have been one of those games, but we made sure it wasn’t.”