LEWISTON — St. Dom’s is heating up at the right time.

With less than one week remaining in the season, and with a pivotal clash with Biddeford looming, the Saints had every reason to look past Auburn neighbor Edward Little.

But they didn’t. Alex Parker and Austin Christopher made sure of it.

Parker registered a hat trick and Christopher stopped all 14 shots he faced to earn his first career varsity shutout as St. Dom’s rolled over Edward Little 5-0 at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Wednesday.

“A goal coming into this game was to not give up more than one goal tonight,” St. Dom’s coach Steve Ouellette said. “I think our ‘D’ did pretty well back there tonight, and once again, Christopher made some big saves. They got some good quality chances there, and he was able to get his first shutout of the year.”

Edward Little, meanwhile, remains on the outside of the Eastern Class A playoff picture, a handful of points back of Brunswick, which has completed its season. EL has one more chance, with a game Saturday against Mt. Ararat.

“We played a really tough schedule this year compared to last year,” EL coach Craig Latuscha said. “We played a lot of good teams … In the end, it will help us out in the future, and hopefully it will help us out this year. It comes down to the end. Playoffs start Saturday for us. If we win that game, we may be able to squeak into the playoffs. If we don’t, obviously, we’re out.”

Latuscha said that despite the lopsided result, he was happy with his team’s play Wednesday.

“We played two goalies and I thought the guys played well against a top, Tier-I team like that,” Latuscha said. “I thought to keep it to 1-0 after the first and 4-0 after the second, I was proud of the effort.”

Neither team generated much offense in the opening frame, and it took a diving swing at the puck from Parker for the Saints to crack the ice with the contest’s first goal.

With the Saints pressuring down low, Dylan Rodrigue sent the puck into the low slot, where it ricocheted off EL starter Alan Nelson to his left. Parker flew in from the left side and, as he tripped through the gaggle of players gathered in front, he swept the puck into the open cage for a 1-0 St. Dom’s advantage.

EL had a pair of good opportunities on the power play in the first, but Christopher stopped a pair of tricky bouncers and one good pass with a push from left to right to keep the Eddies off the scoreboard.

In the second, the Saints opened it up. Parker added two more — including one on a shorthanded break — and Cody Rodrigue added another to push the Saints’ advantage to 4-0.

“The first period, we had a few good shifts, and then we kind of fell back,” Ouellette said. “Both of their goalies played well tonight. We were finally able to break through for a few in the second. But we were never really able to get any clean flow going for much of the game.”

Brian Mathieu capped the scoring with a goal with five seconds remaining in the game, the lone shot to beat EL’s Rich Belanger, who came on in relief of Nelson in the third frame.

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