LEWISTON — The last time Messalonskee High School stepped foot on the Colisee ice, it won a Class B state title. 

In their first trip back to Lewiston on Wednesday, the Eagles took down a 20-time champion. 

Messlonskee’s Jared Cunningham netted a third-period hat trick, his final goal the dagger in the Eagles’ 4-1 win over Lewiston. It’s Messalonskee’s first win over a Class A school in two tries this season. 

“Last year we had to play Bangor and Falmouth and we had the same mindset that we had all year,” Cunningham said. “Coming into this game, most of us knew what it took to beat (Lewiston) and we just capitalized.” 

Cunningham tallied his first just 26 seconds into the final period to give the Eagles a two-goal lead. He knocked home a rebound off the stick of teammate Jake Dexter, who finished with three assists. 

While his third goal may have been the dagger, Cunningham’s second was just as crippling to the Blue Devils’ hopes of mounting a comeback. Just 22 seconds after Dustin Larochelle got Lewiston on the board with a wrist shot far post from the slot, Cunningham netted the equalizer to push Messalonskee’s lead back to two. 

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“We didn’t move our feet. We weren’t focused,” Lewiston coach Jamie Belleau said. “We didn’t come ready to play. The kids know it. We have to be better than that. I give a lot of credit to Messalonskee, we knew they were good team and we made a good team even better today because we weren’t mentally focused. We didn’t move our feet and we didn’t come ready to play.” 

The Blue Devils (4-2-1) surrendered odd-man rushes throughout the second half of the contest. They became more frequent in the third period and Cunningham made Lewiston pay with 6:37 remaining. Skating in on a 2-on-1, Cunningham beat Strout with a snipe over his glove-side shoulder just inside the far-side post. 

“Jared’s definitely one of our leaders,” Messalonskee coach Joseph Hague said. “He wears the captain for a reason. He always stands up and gets what we need done. That whole line (Cunningham, Dexter, Brandon Nale) is very productive. The three of them have great chemistry together. They’re very good skilled players and it’s a blessing to have them as a coach.” 

Cunningham’s line contributed four goals and four assists. 

“We’re pretty good in the neutral zone,” Cunningham said. “We get into the zone and we make things happen.” 

Having played an Eastern Class A opponent earlier this season in Bangor, the defending state champion and three-time Eastern Class B champion Eagles weren’t intimidated by the Blue Devils. 

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“The intimidation factor goes away when you put pucks in the net,” Hague said. “You obviously want to stick to the game plan and try to get going earlier. It took us a little while to get the gears going, but once they started doing it, generally it moves quickly.” 

Lewiston held a 32-24 edge in shots, 19 coming in the first period. Despite holding a 19-7 advantage in shots in the opening frame, hardly any of them were quality chances. Many came from the blue line or in the neutral zone. 

“We had very few quality chances,” Belleau said. “They did a really nice job keeping us to the outside. I take my hat off to them, they did a nice job. Clearly that was part of their game plan and they executed it exceptionally well, but we didn’t have guys crashing the net and getting to the net like we usually do. Usually if we’re taking shots from the outside we’ve usually got a blue or white shirt in there shortly thereafter.” 

The Eagles outshot Lewiston 17-13 over the final two periods and capitalized on their first power play. With one second remaining on the man advantage, Nale beat Strout with a wrist shot from the top of the right circle following a faceoff win by Dexter as Messalonskee grabbed its first and last lead with 8:24 left in the second period. 


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