LEWISTON —   Down by a goal with fewer than six minutes to play, Lewiston senior Tanner Hubbard and his teammates were on a mission.

“You definitely don’t want to lose to your rival at your home turf,” Hubbard said. “You have to go your absolute hardest and go for the win.”

Out of first-year coach Ben Fournier’s timeout, Hubbard and the rest of the Blue Devils’ offense found a rhythm —   and not a moment too soon.

Hubbard scored twice and Logan Lecompte added another in a 2:28 stretch late in the fourth quarter to lift Lewiston to a 5-3 win over rival Edward Little at Bates College’s Morgan McDuffee Field on Saturday.

“Coach wanted us to get possession at the end, keep the ball in our end and give the defense a break,” Hubbard said. “We just held onto the ball, didn’t try to force things.”

“I am really impressed at how they stepped up, they turned it right around, right there in the fourth,” Fournier said. “I told them in the huddle, ‘You guys have two choices. We can take care of business right now and get it done, or we can continue complaining … and accept the loss.’ They stepped up. It was great.”

Originally scheduled for Friday but postponed due to weather, the game was the first between Fournier and EL coach Steve Cobb —   former Lewiston teammates. The familiarity was evident on the sidelines, with friendly banter back and forth, even in a tight game.

It took a while for the teams to settle in.

“Call it first-half jitters, or whatever,” Cobb said. “Really it was more getting into our rhythm, throwing and catching. Nobody wants to drop that first pass or anything. It was just about getting comfortable, playing in front of a big crowd in a big game and just relaxing.”

Max Bolduc scored one of his two goals with 3:08 to play in the first quarter to put the host Blue Devils in front early. Neither team scored again in the first half.

“It’s the first time we’ve played against a 3-3 zone, and the kids were a little bit like, ‘Oh, what do I do?'” Fournier said. “At the end of the second quarter, we tightened some things up and it looked really good those last two minutes, so I told them at the half, this is what we need to do the rest of the game.”

Matt Adams tied the game for EL 2:06 into the third quarter with a snipe to the top left corner of the cage past Lewiston keeper Tom LePage. Bolduc’s second of the game came with 1:24 left in the third, and rattled both pipes before settling behind the line.

“Me and Max, we got a little more chemistry going at the end,” Hubbard said. “We kind of knew where each other was on the field, kind of got into a flow of things, started catching more passes and finishing better.”

“They started to figure it out,” Fournier said. “We have two good leaders in Tanner and Max, and they just clicked finally.”

The Eddies wouldn’t go away. Cam Cormier scored 30 seconds later to tie the game, and early in the fourth, he scored another, taking advantage of a distracted Lewiston keeper after a delayed penalty was announced.

“We never at any point felt like we were out of it,” Cobb said. “All our Xs and Os pretty much stayed the same. I just told the kids to enjoy the moment, play hard and play fast and play with energy, and things will happen naturally.”

After a Lewiston timeout, though, the Devils appeared to pick up a step in the offensive end. Hubbard finished a feed from Reilly Bolduc at the right post to knot the game at 3-3. Lecompte cut to the middle and finished a feed from Shuaib Naji for a 4-3 advantage, and Hubbard added another from Max Bolduc with 3:06 to play for insurance.