BIDDEFORD — The Lewiston Blue Devils used a four-goal, first-period outburst, to open their varsity boys’ high school season with a 5-3 victory over the Biddeford Tigers Saturday at Biddeford Ice Arena.

The Blue Devils trailed early in the first period, but used a four-minute span to blow the period wide open.

“It was a good start. Biddeford is a really good hockey team,” Lewiston coach James Belleau said. “They embarrassed us a little bit last week. We knew we were going to have a tough game. We had a lot of younger players that hadn’t played at the varsity level before, we had a goalie that hadn’t played at the varsity level before. We (built) a lead and finished the job, we’ll take it.”

Biddeford opened the scoring just 33 seconds into the period when Zack Thompson fired a shot from the left circle, catching the upper right corner of the net.

The Blue Devils held their composure after giving up the early goal and bounced back less than two minutes later with a power-play goal.

At 2:02, defenseman Eddie Emerson evened the game, 1-1, for the team’s first of three power-play goals as they finished 3-for-6 with the man advantage.

Reid Pomerleau tallied the go-ahead goal for Lewiston at the four-minute mark, beating Biddeford netminder Brandon Daigle on a breakaway.

Less than two minutes later, Kyle Lemelin scored his first goal of the season as the Blue Devils grabbed a two-goal lead, 3-1, just five minutes into the game.

Ethan Melvin capped off the first period scoring for the Blue Devils at 6:43 of the period.

With Biddeford captain Nik Lemieux in the box for tripping, the Blue Devils added its third-period, power-play goal of the game at the 9:34 mark of the second period, picking up the low rebound and beating Daigle just inside the left post, extending their lead, 5-1.

“The first period and a half, we kept our composure which allowed us to build a lead, but the last half we started to lose our composure because Biddeford was beginning to press, the kids starting to face adversity and stopped moving their feet,” Belleau said.

Biddeford added a power-play goal late in the second period with 23 seconds left as Lemieux had a wide-open net from the right circle.

“I don’t like how we finished the game,” said Belleau.

“I like how we started the game, but the bottom line is we were on the road against a good team, we got a ‘W’ and we know we have some things we still need to work on.”

Biddeford pulled to within two goals with six minutes left in the game, but Blue Devils’ goalie Nick Hawk played well, making 15 saves on 18 shots to preserve the win.

Daigle finished with 21 saves on 26 shots.

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