YARMOUTH — Yarmouth’s boys’ hockey team has spent its share of time in Lewiston in March of late and this year’s seniors weren’t about to bow out without taking another trip to the Colisee.
The fourth-ranked Clippers got key contributions Tuesday night from their senior stars – Dom Morrill scored twice, Cooper May had a goal and three assists and goalie Dan Latham stopped 19 shots in a 5-1 win over No. 5 Gorham in a Class B South quarterfinal at Travis Roy Arena.
Yarmouth (11-6-2) advanced to meet top-ranked Greely (15-2-1) in Friday night’s semifinal in Lewiston.
“We have a strong senior group,” said May. “A lot of guys who have won a lot of games and we didn’t want this to be our last game.”
There were few good chances in the first period until the very end. When play was stopped for a faceoff in the Gorham zone with 1.7 seconds left, May won the faceoff to Morrill, who beat Gorham goalie Garett Babineau a split second before the horn sounded.
“It was an awesome faceoff win by Coop and I just shot it,” Morrill said. “Right when I saw it hit the net I heard the buzzer.”
Scoring chances picked up in the second period, but the game remained close.
With 8:07 to play and the Clippers killing a penalty, May took a pass from John Decker, broke free and raced in on Babneau before being tripped up and earning a penalty shot. May drew Babineau out of the net on the penalty shot and ripped a shot past him for a 2-0 lead.
“I just found his glove side,” May said. “I knew what I was going to do and I executed well.”
The Rams regained some momentum on the same power play as 46 seconds later Trevor Gray took the puck from Lucas Roop and beat Latham with a blast just inside the far post to make it 2-1.
Yarmouth pulled away in the third as May set up Decker for a goal at 4:27, May fed Morrill for his second goal at 9:14, then Kurt Heywood clinched it (from Aidan Miller) at 9:29.
“It was certainly the guys you’d expect who finished, but our biggest goals were set up by guys no one notices,” said Yarmouth Coach Dave St. Pierre. “We had unsung heroes doing things we’ve preached all year.”
The Clippers failed to score on four power plays, but outshot the Rams 27-20, and got 19 saves from Latham.
Yarmouth lost to Greely, 5-1 and 4-1 during the regular season.
“Going to Lewiston is our goal every year,” St. Pierre said. “We feel like we belong there. Greely’s a very talented team. We’ll have our hands full, but we’ll try to go up there and execute the best we can.”
Gorham was 1 of 3 on the power play and got 22 saves from Babineau, but ended its season at 9-10.
“Yarmouth has good offensive players and Latham always does his job against us,” said Gorham Coach Jon Portwine. “The guys worked hard, but we just ran into a good team.”
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