PORTLAND — Lewiston knew all about John Wheeler.

But little-known attackman Ryan Pallotta was the Scarborough player wielding the fateful dagger on Saturday.

Wheeler, one of the Red Storm’s go-to offensive threats all season, broke a tie late in the third quarter, and Pallotta netted an insurance marker 1:46 into the fourth, lifting Scarborough to a second consecutive Class A state lacrosse title with a 6-4 victory over Lewiston.

“Ryan Pallotta just started his first varsity game last week,” Scarborough coach Joe Hezlep said. “We had an injury to another attackman who started today, but just didn’t quite have it. Ryan filled in exceptionally well and did everything we could have asked from him.”

The Red Storm have played in four Class A state title games since the league split into two classes in 2006, and have won all four, including the first Class A game, also against Lewiston.

“Being in this type of game, being in these kinds of situations before helps a lot,” Hezlep said. “They were coming up to me, telling me what they should be doing. That’s what we want, to get into those situation, to be tested. Going into the playoffs every year, that really helps.”

But this year’s title was far from the 14-2 romp over the Blue Devils five years previous. Lewiston’s stalwart defense, anchored by goalkeeper Jesse Leeman, held Scarborough’s high-powered offense to only six scores, only the third time this season — and second in a victory — the Red Storm have scored fewer than nine times.

Leeman finished with nine saves and stared down several other shots that went wide — all with a broken finger in his left hand.

“He showed me more guts than I have ever seen from anyone these last three games,” Lewiston coach Bill Bodwell said. “He broke his finger in warm-ups against Portland three games ago, and he’s stayed right with it. To play with that injury to his top hand was amazing.”

But while Bodwell’s defenders for the most part held the Storm in check, the Devils’ inability to strike on offense made it hard to gain any momentum.

“I did not have a good game plan and I got outcoached,” Bodwell said. “I wish I could have done more to help these boys. These are some of the finest young men I’ve ever been associated with and I feel bad I couldn’t do more to help them out.”

“We probably should have possessed the ball a little bit more and relaxed a little bit more,” Bodwell added. “Obviously, this is the fourth time they’ve been here in six years. This is our first (since 2006), and that may have had something to do with it.”

Scarborough bolted out to a 2-0 advantage in the first quarter on a pair of goals from Peter Moore, and added a third early in the second from Jon Blaisdell. A minute later, the Storm hit a post.

“I think it just took Lewiston a second to get going,” Hezlep said. “They’re an excellent team. We saw how well they played. You take away that first quarter, it’s 4-3 them. We happened to have one extra quarter in us today that they didn’t.”

Undaunted, the Blue Devils began to rally.

“We’ve kind of been a come-from-behind team this year. We beat Cape when we were down; we were down against Portland,” Bodwell said. “The guys are used to being down and coming back. Our defense played well all season.”

Twice, Curtis Robinson shook a defender at the left side of the cage, wheeled to the front and fired over Scarborough keeper David Pearson to cut the Red Storm advantage to 3-2 at the half.

“He’s been doing that all year. He’s just a good attackman,” Bodwell said. “Scarborough was smart, though. They flooded that side pretty hard against him. At first I heard them say he was a lefty, and he’s a righty, so I thought maybe we could use that to our advantage, and we did get a couple of goals with him.”

In the third quarter, after another Scarborough tally, Lewiston evened things up on goals from Ryan Lemelin and Sam Cloutier. But with time winding down in the third, Wheeler snuck to the right side of the cage, beat his man one-on-one and bounced a shot through Leeman. Scarborough played an effective game of keep-away for the remainder of the game, limiting Lewiston’s offensive touches.

“We knew we had to get out and play the ball and limit their opportunities,” Hezlep said. “That was the biggest thing. In the fourth quarter, we definitely held onto the ball a little bit longer than we usually would, but that was simply to limit their opportunities, not to create them for us.”

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