Scarborough 6
Deering 4
The Scarborough hockey team took a 5-1 lead into the third period Saturday night and saw it nearly vanish before rebounding for a 6-4 win over Deering at the USM Ice Arena. Jacob Rutt led the Red Storm with a pair of goals. Scarborough got their other four goals from four different scorers.
With a comfortable lead in the game’s final period, the Red Storm got into a bit of penalty trouble. First, Nick Tolman was sent to the box for interference. Just 25 seconds later, he was joined by Andrew Nigro and the Rams had a two-man advantage. During the power play, Nate Gadbois was sent to the box as well for the Storm.
With 25 seconds left on the penalty to Tolman, Dan Brown of Deering went for the five hole and scored a power play goal. That allowed Tolman to come out of the box but left the Storm at a two-man disadvantage because of the penalty to Gadbois. Sixteen seconds after Brown’s goal, Nick Bartlett squeezed the puck past Ben Waller for another power play goal to make it a 5-3 game.
With Gadbois still in the box, Brown scored Deering’s third power play goal in 90 seconds with a shot that threaded the needle between Waller and the post.
“We can play with any team five-on-five,” said Rutt. “But with any team, it’s tough to play a man down. We got a little unfocused and we just got off our game and started to get outplayed.”
With the Rams suddenly springing back to life and the Storm clinging to a one-goal lead, Rutt scored an insurance goal with just over four minutes to go in the game when he took control of the puck and fired a wrist shot that just got by Deering goalie Andrew Jacobs.
“We needed to get a goal,” Rutt said. “We needed to stop the momentum. If we didn’t stop it, it would have been a lot harder to win the game.”
Earlier in the game, Scarborough took a big lead in the second period. Already leading 1-0 going into the period, the Red Storm looked to put things away. Rutt scored his first goal of the game early in the period when he slapped the puck into the twine during a scramble in front of the net.
Just over a minute later, Nigro scored a goal on a slapper from the top of the right face off circle. That gave Scarborough a 3-0 lead. 20 seconds after that goal, Brett Leighton scored with a nifty backhanded shot into the top shelf.
“In the first period it seemed like we were getting out worked,” Rutt said. “Our goal (in the second) was to win the period, to get more shots and have fewer turnovers. And we stayed out of the box.”
The Rams got on the board in the second period when Bartlett scored on a scrum in front of the net with 6:46 to go in the period. That goal was negated when Gadbois and Rutt skated into the Deering end. Gadbois passed to Rutt who passed back to Gadbois. Gadbois fired a back-hander that rippled the mesh for a 5-1 lead.
Scarborough got on the board first when Buddy Reid scored on a wrister midway through the first period.
The Red Storm improves to 3-1 with the win. They were scheduled to participate in the school vacation week before getting back to their regular slate of games when they head to Biddeford to take on Kennebunk on Jan. 2.
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