LEWISTON – Checkmate, Brunswick.

A season’s worth of middie-to-attack-1s, long-stick-to-attack-2s, Celtic defenses and Army offenses between Brunswick and Lewiston came to an end Wednesday, with Brunswick holding the slimmest of three-to-one edges.

Lewiston grabbed a win in the season-opener between the two squads in Brunswick, and watched as the Dragons spent all season exacting their revenge. For its efforts, Brunswick is returning to the state championship game in defense of the title it won last season.

The Dragons got three goals each from Anthony Diaz and Collin Schaefer and two more each from three other players as they ran over the Blue Devils, 13-7, at Don Roux Field in their Eastern Class A final matchup.

“There’s a lot of strategy behind the scenes in games like this,” Brunswick coach Don Glover said. “We know each others’ programs, and we script things to counter. It’s a part of the game a lot of people don’t see.”

“We know each other pretty well, that’s for sure,” Lewiston coach Tom Fournier said. “For my guys, I couldn’t ask for any more out of them.”

After a tight first half, after which Brunswick held a slim 3-2 edge, the Dragons (13-1) opened things up in the third quarter, fooling Lewiston with a variety of cuts through the center seam that left goalkeeper Kyle Dussault spinning in his crease.

“Picks and a good motion offense (worked),” Schaefer said. “None of us were standing still, and that’s how we caught them.”

“They were cutting from up top all game,” Lewiston defensive captain Caleb Daigneault said. “We weren’t making our slides.”

Three goals in the first half of the third quarter ran the Brunswick lead to 6-2. Four more with just one Lewiston answer left things at 10-3 with one quarter to play.

“The offense has always gone off what the defense gives us,” Schaefer said. “We just kept the momentum and the intensity from there.”

“I think we had them until that third quarter,” Lewiston captain Jon Roy said. “They put two quick ones in, we got a call against us, they put another two in, and that put us down six. we tried to come back, but by that time it was a little too late, I think.”

Alex Pare spelled Dussault between the Lewiston pipes to begin the fourth quarter, but he didn’t fare much better.

Three more quick one allowed the Dragons to rest their top players for a bit. That bit was all the Devils (12-2) needed to get the wheels spinning on solid ground again. Roy scored and added a pair of assists and Zack Blauvelt, Alex Stone and Ben Landry all scored to pull Lewiston back to within six at 13-7.

“We had started subbing a whole lot of players onto the field,” Glover said. “It was kind of an awkward situation. We started losing the momentum there, so we shifted back and ran our horses again, just get momentum back on our side.”

The teams managed no more goal-scoring.

Lewiston began the game with ball possession in the most extreme sense. The Devils held the ball for nearly nine of the opening 12 minutes.

But it was Brunswick that struck first, getting a goal from Wes Caparatto to steal a 1-0 first-quarter lead.

“They took the first nine shots, and our first shot, we were able to get a goal,” Glover said. “That’s a pretty special thing, coming out of the first quarter and being able to say we’re up 1-0, but losing in all of the statistics.”

In the second, the teams traded goals, and Lewiston each time climbed back to within one, but never could even the score.

“If we could have finished a few more of those, it’s a whole different game,” Fournier said.