LEWISTON — By the time St. Dom’s showed up to play its game against Biddeford on Saturday, it was too late.

Bryan Dallaire and Brady Fleurent scored a pair of goals each as Biddeford built an early four-goal lead and held off a hard-charging Saints squad late for a 5-3 win at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

“We were definitely hustling up and down the ice, creating some opportunities,” Biddeford coach Rich Reissfelder said. “They have a great team, great speed, great depth and great coaching. It was a big win for us.”

Dallaire and Fleurent have been perplexing defenses all season. The pair of players has now accounted for 23 goals in nine games this season. But for the Saints, the problem wasn’t necessarily an inability to stop the Tigers’ potent attack, but rather an inability to generate one of their own.

“I’ll be honest with you, today, I’m pretty embarrassed,” St. Dom’s coach Steve Ouellette said. “The mental part of that game was pretty bad for two periods.”

St. Dom’s did about as well defensively as it could have expected against Biddeford on the shot chart, holding the Tigers to just 17 shots on goal and keeping most of them to the outside.

But the Saints’ inefficiency, particularly on special teams cost them dearly. Despite spending 10 of the first 20 minutes of the contest on the power play, St. Dom’s couldn’t establish anything with the extra skater.

“I think they thought it was still practice yesterday where we were practicing moving the puck around,” Ouellette said. “We have no excuses today. We had six minutes of power-play time in the first and then a four-minute power play in the second. Enough said when you have results like that.”

Biddeford, meanwhile, scored a power-play goal and a shorthanded goal while holding St. Dom’s to one power-play goal on eight tries. Both teams began the day among the top three teams in the Class A standings, and both teams owed the blemishes to their records to Lewiston. Biddeford tied the Blue Devils early in the season, and Lewiston defeated St. Dom’s.

The Tigers were the models of efficiency in the first frame.

Dallaire got things started for Biddeford early, weaving his way through a pair of St. Dom’s defenders before pulling the puck to his backhand and slipping the puck past St. Dom’s keeper Austin Christopher 3:24 into the contest on his team’s first shot of the game.

Scott Callahan added another for Biddeford on the Tigers’ second shot of the game, this time converting on a shorthanded breakaway with a wrister high glove that clanged off the bottom of the crossbar and bounced in.

“It’s nice to have goal-scorers,” Reissfelder said. “Against some teams, they work and work and work and they can’t get a break, and other games, it seems everything that goes on net finds a hole. I’ll take it. Any chance we can get, we’ll take it.”

St. Dom’s had the benefit of three power plays in the opening frame, and despite five shots on goal during those man advantages, couldn’t solve Biddeford goalie Tyler Morton.

The Saints began the second period with a four-minute power play, but it was Biddeford that enjoyed the better of the opportunities while killing that penalty. The Saints never got a shot on net with the extra skater. The Tigers tested Christopher twice, and the sophomore stopped both offerings.

Dallaire added his second of the game at 11:55 of the middle frame, finishing a three-man pass play with a wrister from the left circle. Brady Fleurent made it 4-0 56 seconds later on the Tigers’ first power play chance of the game.

The Saints broke up Morton’s bid for a second consecutive shutout 3:18 into the third when Cody Rodrigue hammered home a pass from Dakota Keene at the top of the crease, but Fleurent answered with his second of the game just 3:02 later.

“That was big, it gave us back a four-goal lead at that point,” Reissfelder said. “That’s what St. Dom’s does … they never quit.”

Alex Parker and Spencer Martin netted a pair of quick goals, pulling the Saints within a pair with 5:27 to play in regulation, but the Tigers held on from there.

“The sad thing is today, I don’t think they beat us as much as we beat ourselves mentally,” Ouellette said.