BIDDEFORD – A lackluster first period was enough to put St. Dominic behind the 8-ball against Thornton Academy in a rematch of last year’s boys’ hockey Class A State championship.

Thornton jumped out to a 2-0 lead and held on for a 3-1 victory over St. Dom’s Saturday evening at the Biddeford Ice Arena.

St. Dom’s head coach Steve Ouellette was less than pleased with his team’s effort after recording just three shots in the first period. St. Dom’s dropped to 1-2 on the season.

“From my standpoint, the first period was awful,” he said. “In the defensive zone I had guys that were slow getting to the puck, slow to make a decision.”

“We got better as the game went on, but we’re just not consistent enough.”

Thornton’s first goal of the game came at the 10:27 mark of the first period off a breakdown by the Saints as Drew Lavigne scooped up the loose puck and fed a pass to Justin Cloutier, who threw a knuckle shot that found its way past St. Dom’s goaltender Austin Christopher.

“The goal came off a bad turnover, trying to do too much,” Ouellette said. “We had control of the puck, unfortunately we were skating deep into our zone, it was bad turnover, they had guys down low and they took advantage of that.”

The game was really only a rematch in title only, as both teams underwent off-season changes. Thornton lost 15 players to graduation or transfer.

“It’s a matter now that for all intents and purpose that this was the state final last year, however, both teams are very different and for us it was more about establishing ourselves in this season, and establishing an identity as a team versus anything that happened last year,” said Thornton coach Jamie Gagnon.

The Golden Trojans extended their lead, 2-0, with a power-play goal 5:57 into the third period after Caleb Labrie was whistled for elbowing.

“A good start was imperative to us,” Thornton coach Jaime Gagnon said.

Lavigne, who finished the game with a goal and two assists, tipped Stephen Comar’s shot from the point past Christopher.

“It was a good tip-in (by Thornton) on a power play,” Ouellette said about the play that set up the power play goal. “We give them enough power plays and they should score and that’s what they did.”

Christopher finished the game with 18 saves and Ouellette thought he was one of the bright spots for the Saints.

“(Christopher) played great,” said Ouellette. “He did an awesome job to keep us in the game. It’s not a goaltending issue. We’ve got to help him and not have our goalies work so hard.”

The Saints finally broke through with a power-play goal of their own with five minutes to play in the game as Labrie, at the left post, was able to settle down a rebound from Brad Berube’s initial shot from the bottom of the right faceoff circle, snapping a quick wrist shot by Thornton goaltender Andrew Hout.

With the faceoff in the Saints’ offensive zone, Ouellette called a time out with a minute left in the game and pulled Christopher for an extra attacker. But Thornton won the faceoff and Alex Fallon scored an empty-net goal with 55 seconds left to seal the win for the Golden Trojans, who improved to 2-0 on the season.

“We have some slow starts so far and it’s going to cost you when you play the schedule that we play,” Ouellette said. “Thornton is a young team and they came out and played like an experience team and we’re a young team and we came out and played like a young team.”