LEWISTON — With fewer players on the field and more space with which to work, Oxford Hills was much more comfortable in overtime against Lewiston on Wednesday.

It didn’t take the Vikings long to turn that comfort into victory.

After a quick run up field off the faceoff from the Blue Devils, Oxford Hills turned the play around just outside its own 25-yard line, raced up field with five passes between four players and forced the ball into the circle. There, the always-dangerous Heather Verrier redirected a shot across from Jesse Murch through Lewiston keeper Ravon Palmer’s pads and into the cage, lifting the Vikings to a 1-0 victory 53 seconds into the extra session.

“It was just pass, pass, pass up the field, and then when Jesse got it, she got a good shot and it got behind the goalie,” Verrier said. “I was able to get to it.”

It was the second time in as many meetings this season that the two teams battled into overtime. The first time, the teams played to a 1-1 deadlock.

“Every time we play Oxford Hills, we always seem to go into overtime,” Lewiston coach Bre Allard said. “It’s gut-wrenching. One of these times, we’re going to come out on top.”

Oxford Hills dominated the opening half with an 11-1 advantage in shots and an 8-0 advantage in penalty corners with nothing to show for its efforts.

“We came out hard and worked hard; it was a pretty good game for us,” Verrier said. “We worked really hard, and we really wanted to win.”

Palmer was a big reason the Devils survived the opening half deadlocked at 0-0. She turned back nine shots while the Lewiston offense took one on Oxford Hills starter Abi Egan.

Things turned in the second half.

“We started passing the ball better in the second half,” Allard said. “We were getting our chances.”

Lewiston spent the majority of the second half in the Oxford Hills end. The Blue Devils outcornered the Vikings 5-2 in the stanza, and outshot them 7-4. But they couldn’t get a good offering through the Oxford Hills defensive group.

The Vikings, in turn, couldn’t move the ball seamlessly in transition, and continued to play defensively.

“I don’t know what it is,” Verrier said. “Every time we came down this side of the field … I think we came out in the second half and thought, ‘Hey, we’re doing pretty good,’ and then we realized they were playing well and we said, ‘OK, now it’s time to play hockey.'”

“The second half, we started to bunch up a bit,” Oxford Hills coach Cindy Goddard said. “We needed to spread things out a bit, and the overtime gave us a chance to do that. The passing, it was getting harder and harder in the second half, but with more room, it came back.”

And it didn’t take long, which was a bit of a shock, even to Goddard.

“We’re not usually a high-scoring team, so yeah, it was a bit of a surprise that it came that quickly,” Goddard said.”

The win likely solidifies for Oxford Hills a spot in the Eastern Class A playoffs, though positioning is still very much in flux. The Vikings, Edward Little, Mt. Ararat and Lewiston occupied positions 6-9 in the standings going into Thursday’s action, and all four teams were scheduled to play a handful of games against one another in the season’s final week.

“I said to the girls after practice (Wednesday) that if we didn’t win another game the rest of the season, which was a real possibility, we could be done, or we could win out and go in fourth,” Goddard said. “I think other than the top three, everyone could be jumbling up and in different positions by the end of the season.”

Lewiston finishes with games against Mt. Ararat and EL. Oxford Hills closes out against EL, Cony and Lawrence, while EL will face Lewiston, Oxford Hills and Bangor.