LEWISTON — Justin Keaney didn’t get a chance to capitalize on the power play he earned for St. Dominic Academy — he was being evaluated after sustaining a thunderous hit that drew a two-minute elbowing call to the offending Scarborough defender.

The Saints scored with the extra skater anyway, and it was Keaney, on his first shift back minutes later, who helped finish things off, saucering a perfect feed that sent linemate Noah Toussaint alone on goal for the game-winner in a 3-2 win over the Red Storm at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee on Saturday.

“The defenseman gave me a good breakout pass and I just took it up the side,” Keaney said. “Noah was talking and I saw him coming in behind me. I stopped on the boards and fed him. He had a beautiful finish. Really got the boys going the rest of the game.”

The left-hand-shooting Toussaint gathered Keaney’s pass, kept the puck on his backhand and roofed it short side off the crossbar over Scarborough keeper Brandon Wasser’s glove to put the Saints on top, 3-1, with 3:32 to play in regulation.

“Toussaint’s goal was really the back-breaker,” Scarborough coach Norm Gagne said. “Scoring from where he did, he roofed it — that was a heck of a shot, an unbelievable shot, and unbelievable goal.”

The Red Storm, who are using the Colisee in Lewiston as their home rink this season, battled back. Pulling the goalie with about two minutes to play, they forced the puck deep and kept the Saints hemmed in.

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“Overall, we controlled the play, we did the things we wanted to do,” Gagne said. “We wanted to get the puck deep, we wanted to get it down low, and we did that. But we didn’t take advantage of all of our chances. Even at the end, we had some shots, and we missed the net … in close. We missed the net.”

Scarborough did get one back with 1:09 to play when Eric Murray slammed home the puck as it trickled to the front out of a skirmish in the left corner.

“We didn’t really control it; we maybe relaxed a little with that two-goal lead,” St. Dom’s coach Bob Parker said. (Scarborough) pressured us and put one home.”

A St. Dom’s penalty with 26 seconds to play gave the Storm a 6-on-4, but none of their shots found Saints keeper Kyle Welsh, who turned back 19 of the 21 shots he faced.

“(Welsh) has been huge for us,” Keaney said. “It’s good to know you can have a letdown or two, and you’ll have someone like Kyle back there to bail you out in certain situations. Obviously we don’t want to rely on him all the time, but it’s good to know he’s there if something does happen.”

Welsh has seen a lot of rubber this season as the young Saints work on finding some consistency in their game.

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“We’re up, we’re down, we’re up, we’re down,” Parker said. “I felt, maybe kind of what Falmouth felt against us, playing a hard game that night and then coming back the following night and playing another hard game. It’s a really tough assignment, and we have to be better at it.”

St. Dom’s earned a big win over Falmouth Wednesday before falling to Biddeford the next night. After Saturday’s win, next up: Falmouth again.

“Coming into this week, we knew we had three tough games,” Keaney said. “Coming out with two wins is big for us, and has the chance to change our season, hopefully for the better. We had a good win against Falmouth on Wednesday, and more importantly, we have to come out against Falmouth on Tuesday, we can’t have a letdown like we did Thursday against Biddeford.”

Keaney had the first goal of the night for St. Dom’s, a power play marker in the first frame. Scarborough netted the equalizer at 4:35 of the second, and the teams skated into the third all square.

A Benjamin Gosselin blast through traffic from the left point after the hit on Keaney put the Saints in front for good with 7:17 to play.


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