Thornton Academy took advantage of the lively end boards at Cross Insurance Center to earn a trip to the Class A state final.
Brady Pecora scored the game’s only goal 12 seconds into the third period, lift the Golden Trojans to a 1-0 win over defending state champion Lewiston in a Class A semifinal at Cross Insurance Arena in Portland on Tuesday night.
No. 3 Thornton (16-3-1), which avenged a loss to Lewiston in last year’s semifinals, will face No. 4 Kents Hill (12-7-1) in the state championship game at 1 p.m. Saturday at Cross Insurance Arena.
Thornton got control of the puck off the opening faceoff of the third period. Gavin Pellerin dumped it into the offensive zone off the end boards, and Pecora got to the carom first and sent a shot past Lewiston goalie Will Routhier, who left his crease to play the puck.
“Cam (Cyr), in practice, will always work on throwing it to the net, off the goalie’s pads, off the backboard, but whatever works, works, and we got the goal from it,” Pecora said
Coach Jamie Gagnon said the Golden Trojans had been victimized by Cross Insurance Arena’s lively end boards in the past, and the Trojans wanted to use them to their advantage.
“Yeah, I mean, we’ve been working on (some) stuff to try to get out in the rush, and certainly, that was a play that we were looking at,” Gagnon said. “We ran another one earlier in the game that we thought we had a pretty good look at with Cam Cyr. Yeah, just trying to find ways to get loose. They’re a good team, but obviously, it’s a tough battle all the way through all 45 minutes, and we knew it was going to be that way, so we knew it was going to take a play or something that would spring us to be able to get loose, and it just happened we were able to hit on that one.”
Lewiston coach Sam Cloutier said the Blue Devils (14-6) had a partial breakdown on the play.
“I just think it was a little bit of a breakdown off our faceoff that got deep and squirted out the other side of the net and it kind of caught us off guard a little bit to start that period,” Cloutier said.
The Blue Devils had chances in the final minutes but couldn’t get anything past Thornton goalie Drew Johnson (15 saves). Gagnon was pleased with how well his team defended against Lewiston.
“So we couldn’t get away from what we were doing,” Gagnon said. “That being said, we did understand that we just need to get pucks out, get pucks deep, and then get to work on those. But never kind of let them have the odd-man rushes or have the opportunities to come back offensively against us. Because, like I said, they’re so talented.”
Thornton had numerous chances in the second period. It appeared the Golden Trojans took the lead 6:54 into the period when the puck got past Routhier, but referees waived it off. The call was upheld after a replay review.
Later in the second, a Pecora shot hit the crossbar.
Routhier kept the game scoreless in the final two minutes of the second when he made a handful of sprawling saves at point-blank range, back-to-back on Pecora and Pellerin, then again on Pecora.
“You can’t really get frustrated in a game like this,” Pellerin said. “You have to keep persevering. We got some unlucky bounces and a goal taken away from us, but at the end of the day, we kept working and finished.”
Cloutier credited Routhier, who finished with 22 saves, for keeping Lewiston in the game.
“Our goalie played awesome tonight,” Cloutier said. “… Really, really stood tall in the pipes tonight. So as a senior goalie, he’s certainly going to leave with his head high and he played his heart out.”
Thornton will play for the Class A state title for the second time in three seasons. The Golden Trojans beat South Portland/Freeport/Waynflete in 2023.
Gavin Corson, Brayden Duane, Reichen Crossetti, Pellerin, Cyr, Pecora and Johnson all played on that championship team.
“They are very good friends, so it’d be very nice to win another one with them,” Pecora said.
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