LEWISTON — Normally reserved in practice, Lewiston Maineiacs’ head coach Clem Jodoin took over Saturday morning and tried to strike some fear into his team, admonishing them for a shoddy effort despite a win the night before.

It worked.

David Perron scored twice and Peter Delmas again played well in net, making 22 saves, to lead the Maineiacs to a 5-3 win over the visiting Acadie-Bathurst Titan in front of 2,958 at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

“We played much better today than yesterday,” Perron said. “Our shifts were shorter and everybody played well.”

The win finished off a sweep of the two-game weekend set against the Titan, and ran the Maineiacs’ winning streak to three.

The victory also matches Lewiston’s franchise record for wins in a season (36), set last year.

“It was a much better game, much more disciplined,” Jodoin said. “We battled harder, finished our checks. We had more chances. We have to play every game like it’s a playoff game. It’s the only way we’re going to get better.”

Lewiston wasn’t the only team that improved upon its previous night’s performance. The Titan (27-22-1-3, 58 points) pushed their agenda early against Lewiston, and forced an early run-and-gun type of game.

“They have some good players and we can’t be perfect against them all the time,” Jodoin said.

Specifically, Thomas Beauregard and Mathieu Perreault, both in the league’s top 10 in scoring, are a handful to contain, and that assignment falls on Jodoin’s checking line of Stefano Giliati, Stefan Chaput and Marc-Andre Daneau.

“They did a great job against those guys,” Jodoin said. “They played very well defensively.”

Despite their efforts, though, Beauregard potted the Titan’s first two goals, though one, the Titan’s second strike in the first period, was more the Maineiacs’ own fault.

“We gave them that one,” Jodoin said, “but after that, I thought we played well defensively.”

On that chance, with the score 3-1, Beauregard took a feed from Mathieu Labrie just inside the Lewiston zone and broke in alone on Delmas, who sprawled but couldn’t make the save.

Still, the 16-year-old rookie played well despite a nagging hip injury and a ringing head after getting run into early in the game.

“My head is still pounding,” Delmas said after the game.

“It’s good for his development now,” Jodoin said of his goalie. “The guys are learning to trust in him and they have confidence in him, which will help him going into the rest of this year and into next year, too.”

Both teams benefited from odd bounces early in the game and skated at 1-1 just 3:47 into the game. Lewiston went ahead on Eric Castonguay’s 18th of the season at 12:30 of the first after he rammed home a Chad Denny shot in front of Bathurst netminder Antoine Tardif.

The Maineiacs made it 3-1 at 17:14 on Perron’s first of the night, a shot through traffic from the left circle.

Bathurst crawled to within one when Beauregard scored a short-handed goal.

“We gave it what we got, and it just wasn’t enough,” Chabot said. “They played a good game. They were a little more solid than we were.”

In the third, Lewiston again went ahead by two on a highlight-reel goal by Perron, who got a rebound at the top of the crease and walked around to the left side of the net as Tardif lay prone on the ice.

“I saw the goalie laying on the ice, and I tried to go around,” Perron said. “If you don’t score, you look bad, but if you do it looks great.”

The Titan managed a third goal on a screen shot by Labrie at 17:52 of the third, but Stefan Chaput scored into an empty net with six seconds to play to ice the game.

Lewiston next plays Wednesday on the road against the Saint John Sea Dogs, and returns home for two games next Saturday and Sunday at the Colisee.

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