ORONO, Maine — The Bangor High School Rams spotted archrival Brewer the game’s first goal in the annual “Fill the Alfond” hockey game at the University of Maine’s Alfond Arena on Wednesday evening and then they took care of business.
The Class A Rams responded with nine unanswered goals en route to a thorough 11-2 victory over the youthful Class B Witches.
The line of Nick Boudreau between David Brown and Reid Higgs combined for six goals and seven assists as the Rams tallied their highest goal total of the season. Bangor had scored 17 goals in its previous seven games.
Junior Boudreau and sophomore Brown each had hat tricks and Boudreau added two assists while Brown had one. Higgs, a junior, notched four assists. Jacob Munroe, Hunter Neale, Ben Lane, Garrett Henderson and Zach Cowperthwaite had the other Bangor goals.
Senior goalie Zach Alden made 11 saves.
Marty Hewes and Trey Baker scored for Brewer. Freshman goalie Tyler St. Lawrence made 29 saves on 38 shots before junior Cody Munroe came on in the third period and wound up with seven stops on nine shots.
Bangor outshot Brewer 47-13.
Bangor, coming off back-to-back losses to Falmouth, improved to 7-3 while Brewer fell to 4-8 with its fifth straight loss. The previous four losses were all by one goal.
“We had been struggling to score goals this year but we had two good days of practice and switched some stuff up and it worked,” Bangor coach Quinn Paradis said.
“We practiced a new forecheck, we played coach’s system and it worked out real good,” Brown said.
“We forechecked well right from the first minute,” Boudreau said. “It was a good night. [Higgs] found us when we were open.”
First-period goals by Brown, Munroe and Boudreau answered Hewes’ game-opening goal as the Rams quickly established a foothold in the game and carried the play throughout with their superior speed and experience.
Neale and Boudreau lit the goal lamp 28 seconds apart in the first 59 seconds of the second period and Brown notched his second of the game at the 3:23 mark.
Hewes opened the scoring 2:32 into the game with his fifth goal of the season when he swatted a loose puck off a Ram turnover and it trickled in off Alden’s body.
But Brown responded just 1:09 later as Higgs took a shot from the left point that was kicked out by St. Lawrence. The rebound landed on the stick of Brown at the far post and he swept the rebound home for his team-leading eighth goal of the season.
The Rams went on the power play 2:49 later and Munroe capitalized with a scintillating rink-length rush down the right wing and a slick backhander under the crossbar.
It was defenseman Munroe’s fifth goal.
“I had it on my forehand, I went to my backhand to try to get across [the net front] and the puck ended up going up on its side. I threw it on net and it in went short side, under the crossbar,” Munroe said.
Boudreau’s first goal also came on the power play right off a faceoff. He won the draw and then fired a quick wrister from the faceoff dot that beat St. Lawrence.
“I’ve scored like that before. I got tied up, the puck was sitting there and I ripped it hard,” said Boudreau, whose goal was his seventh.
Neale picked up his first of the year 31 seconds into the second period when a Charlie Budd rebound spilled into his path and he fired it into the empty net.
Boudreau expanded the lead at the 59-second mark with a wrister from the inside edge of the left faceoff circle off a Higgs pass.
Brown swelled the lead to 6-1 off a 2-on-1 with Higgs. Higgs threaded the pass across to the far post and Brown redirected it into the upper short side corner.
Henderson scored early in the third before Lane and Cowperthwaite netted Bangor’s third and fourth power-play goals of the game. Baker scored a shorthanded goal for Brewer but Boudreau and Brown capped the scoring.
“It didn’t go our way. Bangor came out and played well. Their top line is strong,” said Brewer coach Lance Ingerson, who lost standout senior defenseman Jack Watkins to a leg injury early in the first period.
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