Red Eddies finish strong in win over Yarmouth

AUBURN — Craig Latuscha was not pleased with the way his Edward Little Red Eddies came out of the gate, but as the saying goes, it’s not how you start. It’s how you finish.

Edward Little defeated the Yarmouth Clippers 7-2 boys’ ice hockey with Brendan Dyer notching a hat trick and two assists in the victory at the Norway Savings Bank Arena Wednesday evening.

“The first period we didn’t have our legs. We weren’t ready. We weren’t ready to play our game,” said EL coach Craig Latuscha. “The second period we came out a little better, and the third period we came out flying and ultimately put the game away.”

Edward Little got on the board first when Cade Chapman found Brendan Dyer, who lit the lamp at the 8:40 mark of the opening frame.

The lead did not last long as Cooper May tied the contest at the 9:23 mark.

The second period started the same as the first. Dyer found the back of the net at 1:18 into the stanza with Chapman picking up an assist. A little over a minute later, David Tureff found the back of the net for the Clippers.

Dyer notched the hat trick goal just before the nine-minute mark with Liam Benson notching the assist.

“We do it so much in practice, it’s more of a muscle memory thing knowing where each other are and putting the puck back in the net,” Branden Dyer said of working with his teammates.

With 1.1 seconds left Ryan Raby scored a power-play goal to give the Red Eddies the 4-2 lead heading into the second intermission.

The Red Eddies went 1-for-2 on the man advantage while Yarmouth was scoreless in three attempts.

The Red Eddies scored quickly twice in the third period as Liam Benson scored 56 seconds in with Raby assisting. The second goal came 37 seconds later when Ben Steele found the back of the net with Dyer and Raby picking up the helpers.

Liam Benson picked up his third assist of the night when he fed Tyler Couture.

Victor Wakelin made 11 saves for loss while Zach Gosselin made 16 stops.

“That’s the good news. It’s early on in the year,” Yarmouth coach David St. Pierre said. “I think we need to find our identity in terms of working hard all three periods. We need to tighten down defensively and stop making mistakes in our own zone. Those are probably the two biggest issues.”