Watch: Dominant 3rd quarter boosts Edward Little boys lacrosse to victory over Lewiston

AUBURN — Andrew Clements racked up four of his game-high five goals in the third quarter to lead Edward Little past Lewiston 12-10 on Tuesday, a rare boys lacrosse victory for the Red Eddies over their rivals.

“It feels absolutely amazing to finally, you know, beat Lewiston,” Clements said. “I’ve never beat them in lacrosse. They beat us in a lot of different sports, so this really feels good.”

The two teams were neck and neck in the first quarter, which ended with Lewiston (4-3) only up 3-1. Daven Langelier, Colton Daniels and Aiden St. George each scored a goal for the Blue Devils, while Clements netted the lone Red Eddies (6-1) goal.

Lewiston's Alex Wade, right, and Edward Little's Casey Mileikis battle for the ball during Tuesday's game in Auburn. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

“After the first quarter, when the score was pretty even, we realized that we could actually beat Lewiston,” Clements said. “I realized that if I won a faceoff and just went down the field that they wouldn’t lock me up right away, they wouldn’t put a guy on me right away.”

In the second quarter, Langelier and Cody Dionne scored one goal each for Lewiston, while Jack Pepin scored twice for Edward Little and Ryan Mileikis and Casey Mileikis added one goal apiece.

At halftime, the rivals were tied 5-5.

The last time the two faced each other on April 22, Lewiston won 20-7.

“I’m so unbelievably proud of these boys and the hard work that they put in, day in, day out, and we’re starting to see that success,” Red Eddies coach Tyler Haskell said. “The boys are really pumped up about it, as am I.”

Haskell said the biggest adjustment the team made was getting settled in on defense and gaining experience for the freshmen starters on the field. One of those freshman starters is goalie Logan Billings, who finished Tuesday’s game with 12 saves.

“He is an amazing athlete, and an even better person,” Haskell said. “I met him last year when I ran a kindergarten through eighth grade clinic, and he just showed up and he’s like, ‘I play goalie,’ and I’m looking at him — he’s bigger than me. He’s got a great attitude, he’s not afraid of competition, he welcomes it.

“I think he’s just he’s just becoming more and more confident being more like himself on the field, and I think we’re this is just a taste of what we have in store.”

Billings said a big factor in his play was how well the defense played, especially in a high-pressure zone that requires heavy communication and timely slides.

“Usually, we’re in man, so when we’re in those high-pressure, high-scoring situations, we’ll go into our zone defense and we lock down,” Billings said. “I was really just thinking like, ‘Ball, ball, ball,’ just forget about how my defense is playing, forget about those last quarters and just lock in.”

Edward Little’s offensive was led throughout the game by the dynamic duo of Clements and Pepin, who tallied four goals in the game. Clements excels on faceoffs, and Pepin, Haskell said Pepin is reliable at every position and not afraid to go after defensive matchups with a long pole.

“Clements is just a rock star in the face off,” Haskell said. “On offense, him and Pepin are just an amazing tandem … they are just like Kobe and Shaq.”

In the third quarter, the Red Eddies put up six goals while the Blue Devils added three — the biggest scoring difference in any of the four periods.

Clements scored Edward Little’s first goal of the quarter and its final three — which were scored during a span of less than two minutes after the Blue Devils got within one goal, 8-7, with 2:37 left in the quarter. Clements scored eight seconds later, added another goal 20 seconds after that, and netted his fourth goal of the period with 45 seconds remaining, giving the Red Eddies an 11-8 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

Clements said Lewiston was “putting a guy directly on,” him for most of the game, which made it hard to generate scoring opportunities. His strategy was to go to the crease and let players like Pepin take runs to the cage.

Pepin and Cam Dufor also scored for the Red Eddies in the third.

Lewiston’s third-period goals were scored by Jackson Bement, Colton Daniels and Cody Dionne

While the Blue Devils aimed to close off Clements, the Red Eddies employed the same strategy for Dionne, who scored six goals in the teams’ April 22 matchup.

“Cody, he’s amazing player,” Haskell said. “He lit us up last time with six goals, and we did face guard on that game. We (now) have a couple more experienced middies with a couple more games under their belt, but neutralizing Cody and Jackson (Bement) were the main keys of the game and I think we did a decent job at it. You can’t completely neutralize them because they’re that good of a player.”

Bement and Dionne were each able to sneak in a goal in the fourth quarter, while Pepin scored the last Red Eddies’ final goal.

Lewiston coach Sam Cloutier called Bement one of the team’s “stronger midfielders,” and said it usually ends well when the ball is in his stick.

“He plays hard and does all the little things for us,” said Cloutier, who was hired as the varsity head coach last week after Ben Fournier and his assistants stepped down.

Pepin scored the final Red Eddies goal of the game, giving him four.

Cloutier said the “Battle of the Bridge” matchup is always a big rivalry with heightened emotions, and the Blue Devils came into Tuesday’s game fired up.

“They did a good job at switching up some positions, making it confusing for us,” Cloutier said. “But the boys tried their best and played hard.”

Defensively, Cloutier said the Blue Devils chose not to pressure behind the net, and let the Red Eddies swing the ball from behind, while looking to lock down known threats from generating cuts and possibly scoring.

Blue Devils goalie Brock Rancourt made several key saves, finishing with 14 overall, and ran the ball to the 70-yard line on two separate clears.

“If they’re not going to play him, we tell him to take the space and the guys did a good job keeping him onside,” Cloutier said. “I don’t think he turned it over anytime that he did that. Obviously, we wouldn’t do that with just anybody, but we have a lot of confidence in Brock to be able to run down the field and get back.”

Tuesday’s rivalry win was especially meaningful for Haskell, a former Lewiston player who played on the Blue Devils 2011 Class A state runner-up squad along with Cloutier.

“It felt amazing because, you know, I’m actually from Lewiston,” Haskell said. “I got to play for Lewiston, play for a state championship, actually, with their head coach — Sam’s great guy, a great coach. But going there, you know, playing for them, coaching for five years, and then coming over to the rival and, you know, being the bad guy and coming back, getting that win, especially after the first game (on April 22).”

Edward Little coach Tyler Haskell, left, gives a player a fist bump as he comes off the field between periods during Tuesday’s game against Lewiston in Auburn. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Lewiston filled out the coaching staff after last week’s departures. Cloutier has added assistants Hunter Steele and Jason Versey, who is also the new JV coach, a role Cloutier filled since last season.

Steele, a former Lewiston player, graduated from Bowdoin in 2023 where he played goalie for the men’s lacrosse team, and Versey is the head football coach and played lacrosse for over 10 years.

“Coach Jason coaches football … so he knows a lot of the guys, and Hunter has been great trying to help us on defense and stuff,” Cloutier said. “We’ve only had two days with our full staff here, so we’ll hit the ground running this week and try to get some more things in.”