If you’ve been waiting for a rivalry to develop on the ice between the Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth hockey programs, the wait is over.
The Red Storm spotted the Capers five goals Monday night at Portland’s Cumberland County Civic Center, but in the end this one was as even it gets, with Cape Elizabeth holding on for a hard-fought 6-4 win.
“They are a good hockey team and we got way too comfortable up 5-0,” said Cape captain Kyle Dancause. “Then we realized we had to fight for it. For us it feels good to win three straight, and two in our division.”
The victory boosted the Cape team to 3-2, tempering season-opening losses to Cheverus and Falmouth. Coach Jason Tremblay’s squad also has wins over Winthrop and Yarmouth.
Scarborough’s program has matured, and is anchored by a large class of juniors who came in as freshmen when head coach Jay Mazur took over the program. Many of those players were tossed into the fire as varsity players right away. Two years of experience was paying off early Monday as Scarborough came out gunning and out-shot the Capers in the early minutes of the game.
But Cape Elizabeth scored the first two goals, with Drake Livada and Tom Rich giving their team a 2-0 first-period lead. Both scores came on power plays.
Then Cape staged an avalanche early in the second period, opening the frame quickly on Rich’s second goal just nine seconds in and within a few minutes Zach Juliano and Mike Kertes made it a 5-0 game. Juliano’s was another power play goal.
Mazur said that, despite his team’s penalties digging an early hole for his team, he didn’t want his players to stop their aggressive play.
“Unfortunately it went against us and they got the power play goals,” said the Scarborough coach. “But I’m not going to tell my kids to stop hitting.”
Some fans became more boisterous as the Storm fell further behind, and someone in the crowd dumped drinks on the Cape bench, but the Red Storm hockey players remained focused and poised. And that led to an impressive comeback.
Credit the scoring touch of Jason Quirk and the unselfish play of captain Brent Mayo for leading Scarborough back into the game.
Mayo, assisted by Stephen Cook, found the net just over 10 minutes into the second period to start the resurgence, and then Quirk scored twice – first on a pass from Mike Dakers, then unassisted – to make it a 5-3 game.
Early in the third period, Dakers netted another score after taking a pass from the persistent Derek Army and that made it a one-goal game. That goal kept most fans glued to their seats.
The final battle, in the game’s last 10 minutes, was played by both sides with as much intensity as was seen through the first two and a half periods. The goalkeepers, Scarborough’s Jason Barden and Cape’s Ryan Hatch, rose to their best, each facing 35 shots in the contest.
The clincher didn’t come until the final 1:25, when Andrew Gibson scored Cape’s final goal into an empty net.
“Let’s not take away from their goalie; he was phenomenal,” Mazur said of Hatch. “He was in the right place and had a great glove. He was definitely the difference.”
The compliments went both ways.
“They are a very well-coached team and they stayed with us,” said Kertes. “That’s a good team. But now we’re back on the winning track.”
Scarborough’s Mayo remained philosophical after his team’s loss.
“We didn’t stop working when we went down by five,” Mayo said. “We stayed with it and now we know we can come back on anybody.”
Tremblay credited the Red Storm players for their relentlessness.
“They took us out of our game a little bit,” he said. “We’ve had a pretty tough schedule this year, and we knew it was going to be that way coming in, but we’re continuing to play better every game. This is a great win for us, and it’s a great opportunity for us to build off this win.”
Cape, which was headed into a Wednesday game against Winslow, plays next on Friday at Maranacook. Scarborough, which fell to 2-2 with the loss, was schedule to play Deering Wednesday and then Thursday at Falmouth.
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