BIDDEFORD — Despite leading 4-1 and holding nearly all the momentum after two periods, the Thornton Academy boys hockey team knew what was coming from Biddeford in the third period of Tuesday night’s Western Class A quarterfinal.
“We always know Biddeford is going to come out and fight,” Golden Trojans senior defenseman Taylor Browne said. “That’s what we expected.”
A fight was exactly what Thornton got, until Browne delivered the knockout blow at the very end.
After trailing by three after 30 minutes, Biddeford came out on fire in the third, getting back-to-back goals on great individual efforts by Ricky Ruck and Nik Lemieux to pull within 4-3 with 4:35 to play.
The Tigers continued to lay siege to the Trojans’ net but couldn’t find the equalizer, and when Browne sent a shot the length of the ice to score into an empty net with 2.9 seconds left, sixth-seeded Thornton had a 5-3 over third-seeded Biddeford in a back-and-forth clash befitting the rivalry.
Thornton (8-10-1) moves on to play No. 2 Scarborough (13-5-1) in the semifinals at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston. Biddeford ended its season at 9-8-2.
“This place, it felt like it was tilted there for a while,” Thornton Academy coach Jamie Gagnon said. “They can move. They have a lot of guys that can score, a lot of guys that can skate. We knew it was coming, we just had to stave it off.
“It came from our senior leaders tonight, and it had to. They gave everything they had.”
The game, a rare playoff contest at Biddeford Ice Arena between the two rivals, was played in front of a packed house, with the stands mostly full an hour before the 7:30 p.m. start time.
“This will be something, win or lose, you’ll always remember,” Gagnon said. “When you’re still 40 minutes from game time and you look out, the crowd’s full and already starting to chant. You know this is something special.”
“That’s the most packed I’ve ever seen this place,” added Thornton senior forward Drew Lavigne. “The student sections were coming in at 6 o’clock. It was great.”
Lavigne had a hand in all three of Thornton’s goals during a decisive second period that gave TA a 4-1 lead.
The scoring started when Browne hit Lavigne with a perfectly weighted leak-out pass that sent him streaking in on the Biddeford goal. Despite being dragged down by Tigers defenseman Cody Sevigny, Lavigne still managed to slip the puck past Tigers goalie Brandon Daigle, with the officials consulting with the goal judge to verify that the puck had crossed the line before confirming the goal.
“That was just a perfect pass by Browney,” Lavigne said. “I just slid it through his five-hole. I knew it was in, or at least I thought it was in. Thankfully we had the goal judge back there because the officials didn’t see it.”
Thornton then had a two-goal with 1:22 left in the period as an Alex Fallon shot was blocked away by Daigle and put in the path of Lavigne, who slid a pass back across the goal crease for an easy tip-in from Fallon.
Thirty seconds later Browne scored off of a faceoff, going around two defenders before beating Daigle at his near post to give the Trojans an ostensibly insurmountable three-goal lead with 15 minutes left.
“Someone set a nice little pick on one of their defenseman, and I made another move around and beat him under his blocker,” Browne said. “I didn’t even know it went in at first.”
Biddeford started the third period on the power play, and in spite of not scoring, used the momentum to slowly build pressure. But it took a moment of individual brilliance from a freshman to get on the board.
Ruck started the move by picking up the puck in his own end and using pure speed to beat two Thornton defensemen down the ice, where he coolly finished a backhander past Trojans goalie Oliwer Hogberg-Karlsson to get his team back in the game with 10:37 to play.
The Tigers then got to within a goal with 4:35 left, as senior captain Lemieux picked the pocket of Thornton defenseman Taylor Cooper behind the goal. Coming around the net, Lemieux beat a surprised Hogberg-Karlsson through the five-hole to make it 4-3.
“We felt we were the better team all night, and we just needed to start working like it,” Biddeford coach Rich Reissfelder said. “They kept working and working and made it a game.”
The Tigers continued to lay the pressure on, with Hogberg-Karlsson (27 saves) forced into several nice stops down the stretch to keep his team in the lead. Biddeford had a final opportunity with a faceoff in the Thornton zone with seven seconds to play, but Fallon won it back to Browne, who nonchalantly flipped it the length of the ice and into the empty net to seal things up.
Even with the possibility of icing and giving the Tigers one last chance, Browne didn’t hesitate to take a gamble and go for glory.
“We actually ran a drill earlier in the season where we shot three pucks the length of the ice,” Browne said. “And if you didn’t make all three, you were skating. It helps to practice.”
The game had started with Biddeford carrying the play, with Sevigny ringing a shot off the post just over a minute in. But it was Thornton who would score first as Owen Lemoine took in a pass from Lavigne and fired his shot over Daigle (20 saves) and into the top corner.
Trailing, the Tigers continued to carry the play and had a golden opportunity to level things when a Lemieux pass across the goal mouth gave Ruck an open net to shoot at from close range, but he fired well over.
Biddeford did equalize on the power play with 3:40 left in the period, as Corey Brown’s shot from near the blue line wasn’t seen by a screened Hogberg-Karlsson. But Reissfelder knew it could have been much more.
“I told Jamie I thought we should have had four (goals) in the first period,” Reissfelder said. “It seemed like the puck would not settle for us all day. We just couldn’t buy a break. If we pop one or two of those early, it’s a whole different ball game.”
— Staff Writer Cameron Dunbar can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323 or cdunbar@journaltribune.com.
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