BIDDEFORD — The atmosphere on the ice at the Biddeford Ice Arena is as it should be.

Members of the Thornton Academy hockey team skate around the ice. The players are split on both ends of the ice, laboring on situational work in front of each net.

But in between each period of work, the Golden Trojans playfully shove each other while making way to center ice to receive further instructions from head coach Shawn Rousseau, showing not an ounce of stress in the world.

It’s the look of experience. Playoff experience, that is.

Only 48 hours after beating Scarborough 6-0 in the Western Maine Class A quarterfinal, the Trojans hit the ice on Thursday afternoon in preparation for their semifinal game against Marshwood/Traip Academy on Saturday at the  Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston.

“We did practice hard today, and we’re playing with a lot of confidence and poise right now, as we want to be,” Rousseau said. “But I have every expectation that Marshwood would like to keep that train moving ahead. What teams ought to be doing this time of the year is focusing on themselves. We’re going hard, but we’re confident and poised and very committed to the systems that we’re playing.”

Not only did the No. 2 seeded Trojans rack up six goals on the Red Storm on Tuesday, but Thornton provided one of its finest defensive outputs of the season, allowing only nine shots on goal, making work easy for goalie Jay Finch, who now has four consecutive shutouts.

It’s easy to say Thornton is playing its best hockey of the season.

“It takes a whole season to develop a team, and I think that’s very much what we’ve seen this year,” Rousseau said after the Scarborough game. “We’ve experienced a lot of different things. We changed our forecheck four or five times. We changed our lineup. We’ve had defensemen who were forwards. It’s really taken a season to mesh and identify what is our best. I think we’ve found it, and I think we’re playing our very best hockey. I think the paradigm is set. If we continue to play the way we did today, our chances are very good.”

The storyline for Saturday’s game is that of two ends of the experience spectrum. Marshwood is participating in its first playoff appearance in its 12-year history in Western Class A, while the Trojans (14-5) are a usual suspect in the championship chase, making the playoffs 14 times in the past 15 seasons.

“I think, like anything in life, there’s advantages and disadvantages,” Rousseau said. “You’re strengths are also your weaknesses. On one hand, you can say Thornton has more playoff experience, ought to be more poise, comfortable. On the other hand, you can say Marshwood/Traip Academy won their first playoff game ever on Tuesday, and what comes with that is a real desire and hunger that is hard to unearth. So I think the edges cut both ways.”

Though the No. 3 seeded Hawks (17-2) are newbies to the playoffs, they are no less dangerous. Marshwood/Traip Academy boasts three forwards in Andrew Rollins, Peter Lajeunesse and Aaron Gootee, each of whom have scored more than 40 points this season.

“If we don’t play our best, we won’t win.” Rousseau said. “This time of year, you’ve got to earn wins.

Though another defensive effort will help in beating the Hawks, Rousseau cited the Trojans are progressing well on offense as well as special teams.

“I think what great teams do is they identify ways to win games each and every game,” Rousseau said. “Marshwood has that potent offense with its three scorers, if they come out and put three [goals] away in the first, we can’t go ”˜Oh, shoot, our defensive gameplan didn’t work, what do we do?’ No, we go out and find another way to win.

“We’ve got a lot of things that are going well. The defensive output was very prominent in the last game, but we scored six goals in 41 shots. Our power play was [2 for 5], our [penalty kill] was perfect. We have a lot of different things coming together to win hockey games. I would love it if I talked to you in a week and we give up nine shots every game that we play, but I think we just need to focus on our standards of excellence and doing the things that we want to do very well, and if that’s the result, we’ll take it.”

Face-off for the contest is scheduled for noon.

— Contact Dave Dyer at 282-1535 ext. 318.