A season-long scoring drought for the Tigers continues, as

Biddeford is routed 7-0

BIDDEFORD – After dropping their first game of the season to Biddeford, the Scarborough girls hockey team has gone on quite a roll, refusing to lose since that opening game. And on Monday afternoon, the Storm got some payback for that first loss.

The Storm crushed the Tigers 7-0 at the Biddeford Arena on Jan. 10, avenging their lone defeat of the season while dropping a Biddeford team that has been struggling offensively all season, to 3-8.

If you dig a little deeper, Biddeford has been outscored in by a margin of 40-8 in losses this season, or just a hair under three points per game. They’ve been shut out three times, been held to one point three times, and won only one game by more than a single goal. The Tigers have drive, and they have talent, but they lack the explosive scoring that their opponents so often bring to bear against them. Monday afternoon’s game was no different. Biddeford took the ice looking confident, and largely controlled the puck for nearly two minutes.

Then the roof caved in.

Once they recovered from the intensity in which Biddeford came after them, Scarborough closed ranks and obliterated Biddeford by shelling the Tigers with for three goals in under a minute and a half. Led by their potent captain Abby Rutt – who was responsible for two of the first three, and wound up hanging five overall on Biddeford – Scarborough hammered the home team for four in the first, found the net twice more in the second, and delivered a devastating final dagger thanks to Rutt midway through the third.

Never was there a more obvious story about two teams heading in opposite directions. The Red Storm (9-1-1), winners of six straight, have definitely gotten over the hump, and are now calmly eyeing the playoffs. Biddeford continues to look for an offensive spark.

“We are struggling all over the map,” said Biddeford Head Coach Marie Potvin. “We are struggling to score, and we are struggling to keep the puck out of the net. A lot of these kids are really new to hockey – and haven’t played it before coming into high school. They haven’t had a lot of middle school or youth organization hockey. They are trying to learn these things, while also learning how to skate. So I am glad they are out here and working very hard, but the better players in the state play a very different level of hockey, and obviously started at a much younger age.”

One of those players is most assuredly Rutt, who the Tigers never fully came to grips with throughout the game. Just 1:45 into the action, Rutt intercepted the puck, swept down the ice and beat Biddeford goalie Emily Brassley for the 1-0 lead. Fifty-seven seconds later, Rutt found the net again, this time on a slap shot the middle of the rink, five feet inside the blue line.

“She can skate, she can deke, and she can shoot,” Potvin said. “She can play. Was I surprised to see what she did out there? No.”

The assault wasn’t over, though. Just 19 ticks after Rutt’s second, Biddeford let in a third goal when the puck was slapped out of a melee just in front of the crease by Kaitlyn Reynolds. Scarborough later netted its fourth when Rutt completed the hat trick on a breakaway with 2:33 left.

“I thought we could score, but they are a very competitive and very aggressive team, so I knew it was going to be difficult to get the puck to the net,” said Scarborough Head Coach Caitlin Cashman. “I was shocked by (the three goals). Biddeford came out in the first minute ready to play, and I think that automatically clicked with my girls like, ‘OK, we need to get going here.’”

When action resumed, the Red Storm continued to largely control the pace and tempo. When the Tigers did get a shot off, it was always deflected, smothered, knocked down or otherwise consumed by the red-clad wall of steel that is goalie Devan Kane. Kane made two impressive, back-to-back saves with 5:04 left, was injured on the second, but returned to the game and persevered as an insurmountable juggernaut in front of the cage.

“She is great,” Cashman said. “She is very competitive, she is very aggressive, and she wants to win. She doesn’t want to let anybody down – she’s just a very hard worker when she’s out there. I think that her aggressiveness as a goalie compliments her abilities as a player.”

Scarborough scored twice more in the middle period; the first by Reynolds with 3:21 remaining, and the second by Rutt with one minute left. This, Scarborough’s sixth, was arguably the fluke shot of the year, as Rutt – moving down ice after a steal – looked to connect with Sarah Martens, but overshot the pass. The “shot,” which would have otherwise been icing, was dead-on for the Biddeford net, somehow got by Brassley, and scooted gently into the webbing to make it 6-0.

“It was actually a pass to Sarah Martens and it went out a little ahead of her, and then it just happened to go in,” Rutt said. “I wasn’t shooting for the net. I didn’t actually see it because I was starting to roll my eyes at myself for making the mistake of icing it.”

Rutt hit her fifth late in the third; another solo goal where she faked out Brassley with a deke to her right and then shot left. Biddeford, despite occasional bursts of speed, never really threatened again following the early scoring by the Storm.

“I think we are ready for York,” Rutt said, looking ahead at the game the Storm will play against the 7-3 Wildcats on Jan. 15. “We are coming together as a team. We are passing, we know each other better, and we are having great practices – much better than we had before.”

Biddeford’s Autumn Brown (4) tries to chase down Scarborough captain Tara Buckley (13) during the middle period of the Red Storm’s 7-0 victory over the Tigers on Jan. 10.
Staff Photo by Emory Rounds