Sticks flew in the underbelly of the Cumberland County Civic Center as though on a medieval battlefield Monday following Cape Elizabeth’s 8-7 overtime loss to St. Dominic.
The Capers were frustrated, but given a few minutes to clear their heads and think about the game – with all of its ups, downs, ins and outs – the team was able to come to some valuable conclusions.
“I think it’s finally good to see what we can do when we work,” said senior forward Kyle Dancause, a team captain. “We haven’t really seen that. We’ve been really inconsistent up and down. We’re 5-5 and obviously not where we want to be, but I think despite the score, that game shows us what we can do and where we can be if we work.”
The comeback effort was exactly what the Capers needed after losing to unbeaten Class B rival Brewer, 7-3, on Saturday.
“It was night and day,” added Dancause. “There was a sense of urgency in this game.”
The wake-up call came 13 seconds in, when St. Dom’s (3-1-1) forward Nick Stalford threw an innocent-looking backhander toward the crease from the left wing corner. The puck deflected off of Cape goalie Jon Newell’s leg pad and into the goal.
The Capers argued that the puck had slipped through a hole in the side of the net – a hole that was there and was fixed before play resumed – but without the use of an instant replay there wasn’t enough evidence to overturn the original call.
By the 14:04 mark, the Saints had extended the lead to 3-0 on goals by Alex Pleau and junior captain Tyler Martin.
But there was some hope for the Capers. With 40 seconds to go in the period, junior Andrew Gibson converted a 2-on-1 to make it 3-1.
“We came in after the first intermission, got pumped up and came to play the rest of the way,” said senior forward Drake Livada, another team captain.
The Capers closed the gap to a goal 3:57 into the second. Livada went in on a partial breakaway and got forced into goalie Brady Blackman by a pair of St. Dom’s defensemen. Dancause crashed in, and with Blackman out of position, fired the puck into the empty net.
The Saints answered back 18 seconds later with another fluke goal. This time, Martin wristed a shot off the left post from the top of the left circle. The puck bounced off of Newell’s back and across the goal line before he could react.
Over the course of the next eight minutes, the Saints padded their lead with two more goals, both power-play tallies. Pleau made it 5-2 with a one-timer from the back post, and Alex Tyburksi made it 6-2 on poked-in rebound.
The game was far from over, though.
“Every time we’d think we had them put away we’d have a couple of unthinkable penalties and they’d just keep capitalizing,” said St. Dom’s coach John Pleau. “They’re a good club. They’ve got seven players that have been on a state championship team, so letting up is not in their repertoire.”
Not on Monday night it wasn’t.
Gibson’s second of the night made it 6-3 with 2:11 left in the period. And then came a two-man advantage for Capers as Eric Bonowitz and Tyburski went to the box within a minute of each other.
Cape forward Mike Kertes was the first to convert. He re-directed a Ben Landry shot from the point as the second-period horn was sounding. The frenzy continued as Dancause made it 6-5 with another power-play goal 45 seconds into the third.
But once again, the Saints had an answer. Martin completed his hat trick to make it 7-5 at the 1:39 mark.
“We just wanted to chip away one by one and that’s what we did,” said Livada, who assisted on Dancause’s goal. “We knew we could score on that goalie if we got some traffic in front. We’ve got some big kids, so we just stood in front and knocked away on him.”
The game was finally tied up with less than three minutes to go in the third. Livada redirected a Dancause pass midway through the period, then tapped in a cross-crease pass from Gibson during a power play.
Freshman forward Ben Randall ended the scoring bonanza 5:53 into overtime, but, like his players, Cape coach Jason Tremblay was able to see the bigger picture.
“I think this is a major turning point in our season. We’ve worked hard, and I think it’s going to pay dividends in the end,” he said. “We’re starting to play better. It’s a long stretch we’ve had, and we’ve played a lot of tough opponents. We haven’t really had any easy games except for maybe one. It’s hard tonight, but they put in one hell of an effort.”
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