BIDDEFORD — The St. Dominic Academy Saints (11-2-1) started off slow but finished strong in a 4-2 victory over the Biddeford Tigers (7-4-2) in hockey game Wednesday afternoon at Biddeford Ice Arena.

“We kind of played it defensive in the first two periods,” St. Dom’s coach Steve Ouellette said. “In the third period, we decided to empty the tank and step it up with the forecheck.”

The Saints were missing five players who were banged up or sick. They were without the services of Adam Poulin, Dillon Pratt, Ricky Lacombe, Austin Roy and Ryan Lutrzykowski.

Brad Berube led the way with two goals, while Noah Toussaint had a goal and three assists and Caleb Labrie scored a goal and earned two assists.

Biddeford coach Rich Reissfelder thought his team played well for two thirds of the game.

“I was very happy. It was even the first two periods,” Reissfelder said. “I thought we had some good scoring opportunities and a couple of turnovers ended up in the back of the net.”

The Tigers controlled the play in the first period. They outshot the Saints 6-4 in the period.

Berube missed the first three shifts of the second period when he broke a skate blade at the end of the first period. When he returned, he made up for lost time. Toussaint and Labrie found him crashing the net to give the Saints the 1-0 lead 5:41 into the middle frame.

“Certainly once again he stepped up,” Ouellette said of Berube. “The guys who needed to be the big boys out there did that again, giving us some production when we needed it.”

After both teams traded penalties in the middle of the period, Biddeford tied the game when Cody Sevigny unleashed a shot from the right circle to tie the contest with 6:39 remaining in the second stanza.

“We wanted to do what’s making us successful,” Reissfelder said of his message going into the third period. “Get the pucks in deep, clear out the (defensive) zone. Unfortunately, we had a couple of bad bounces in our own zone.”

Berube gave St. Dom’s the lead 2:48 into the third period when he put home his own rebound with the assists going to Toussaint and Labrie.

Toussaint poked the puck away in the neutral zone and Caleb Labrie went into the offensive zone all alone to stretch the Saints lead to 3-1 after he slipped the puck past Biddeford goalie Brandon Daigle. The tally came 5:05 into the final period.

“The approach changed in the third, we were trying to do some misdirection, which was the first goal (of the period) was that,” Ouellette said. “We had the deke goal by Labrie, we changed it up oppose to looking at corners. (Daigle) takes up a lot of room and he doesn’t give you much. He moves pretty well.”

Toussaint capped the scoring for the Saints when he roofed a backhander when he fell to to the ice. The puck went over Daigle’s shoulder with 4:56 remaining. Chris Laverdiere and Isaac Lapointe were credited with the assists.

Ricky Ruck scored with 35 seconds left in the game for the Tigers’ second goal after he stuffed the puck past Ridge Servidio’s right pad.

Servidio made 21 saves, while Daigle stopped 14 shots.

St. Dom’s was 0-for-1 on the power play. Biddeford was 0-for-3.

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