LEWISTON — With the ability to get to the front of the net at a premium Wednesday, it took a player like Alex Parker to get it done.

“That’s what he does,” St. Dom’s coach Steve Ouellette said of his senior captain. “He’s tenacious, he keeps fighting away and pound for pound, he can go with anybody.”

In a rare lapse by the Falmouth defense and at the most opportune time for the Saints, Parker found a hole, burrowed into the area in front of the cage and converted a crossing feed from Dakota Keene in the left corner just 1:10 after the Yachtsmen had tied the score, putting St. Dom’s back in front by a goal and helping the team to a 3-1 win at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

“It was hard for both teams to get to the front of the net tonight,” Ouellette said. “There was a lot of traffic there.”

“That’s our favorite style of goal right there,” Parker added. “Guy goes wide, the other guy goes hard to the net, stick on the ice. That’s the goal we like to get. They made it hard to get into the offensive zone. The game was won tonight in the neutral zone.”

Parker’s goal and Keene’s subsequent empty-netter with a minute to play spoiled a solid game for Falmouth’s freshman goalie, Dane Pauls, who smothered St. Dom’s efforts for most of the contest.

“He’s a phenomenal goaltender, and he makes saves when we need him,” first-year Falmouth coach Adam Nicholas said. “The go-ahead goal, our defense failed to rotate to the third guy, the F3 on the back door, and he scores. That’s the mental lapses of our team, that’s the story of our season so far.”

Despite those so-called mental lapses, the Yachtsmen (3-4-2) stayed tight with the Saints through most of the contest.

The Saints wasted little time working the score sheet. Dylan Rodrigue found his brother Cody at the Falmouth blue line and sent him in on a breakaway with a feed through center. Cody snapped a shot that hit Pauls’ blocker and snuck through the void between his right arm and rib cage and into the net.

“We were fortunate on that first goal, it came stretching the ice,” Ouellette said. “We did get some 2-on-1s and partial breaks, but even on those we didn’t get quality shots.”

The Yachtsmen had a hard time generating shots in the opening frame. Their first offering came from beyond the blue line, and after a chance from the right circle, their third came from just inside the blue line with no traffic in front. The Saints outshot Falmouth 8-4 in the first.

“We played better in the second and third periods,” Nicholas said, “but this team is young, they’re immature … they sit back and wait to see how the other team is going to play instead of taking the bull by the horns, and that hurt us in the first period.”

Neither team managed much offense in the second period, though the Saints’ four shots on goal tested Pauls much more than the Yachtsmen’s five shots tested St. Dom’s Austin Christopher.

Falmouth began the middle frame with the bulk of the pressure, and managed three shots on the Saints’ goalkeeper in the first four minutes. But the Yachtsmen went cold through the middle part of the frame, and St. Dom’s wasn’t much better, managing two quality chances against Pauls early, and one more late.

The problem for the Saints appeared to be an inability to transition. The team’s defense was solid in limiting Falmouth’s chances, but the defensemen and trailing forwards were unable to connect with the offensive outlets.

Falmouth briefly tied the game early in the third when Brandon Tuttle slapped home a loose puck on a goalmouth scramble on a Falmouth power play, but it took just 1:10 for the Saints to respond. The Yachtsmen never sniffed the net again, and when they did, Christopher made the requisite saves.