Sometimes, a short stretch of dominance by one team can make all the difference in a game – consider Friday evening’s matchup between Windham and Westbrook, in which the Blazes came out true to their name: on fire. Westbrook scored four goals in the first four minutes alone, all while holding the Eagles totally silent; after that, Windham balanced the play, and the squads traded points until the final buzzer.

Westbrook took the road win 13-8 – a comfortable margin. The battle might’ve been much closer, though, if the Blazes hadn’t charged onto the field in a fury. And when asked about the importance of their early assault, the team stressed the importance of never relenting – of playing the full 48 minutes of every game like those first four minutes against the Eagles.

“We scored seven in the first quarter, six the rest of the way,” said Westbrook head coach Josh Plowman. “So obviously our quick start was huge for us today.

“We went to sleep a little in the second quarter. When the guys kind of woke up and realized, ‘Windham came to play. They’re not just going to give us the game; we have to earn it,’ that’s when they started playing better lacrosse the rest of the way.”

“Every game starts with the beginning,” said freshman Blaze Grayson Post. “If you play well in the beginning, and play like that the whole game, you should be able to win.”

“We’ve never been able to play pretty much a full game,” said Post, acknowledging one of the challenges Westbrook has worked to overcome this season. “That’s the key to winning, for us, is playing a full game.”

“First four minutes, we came out hot,” said junior Blaze Noah Oliver. “Once we get going, we get going. Key for us is we’ve got to stay consistent. We’ve got to finish out a whole game, like Grayson said. Once we can play a complete game, we’ll do pretty good.”

From the outside looking in, Westbrook is already doing “pretty good,” even if they, themselves, still see lots of room for improvement. The win moved them to 8-3 in 2015, and retook third place in A West for them as well, shunting Scarborough down to fourth and Gorham to fifth. The standings have since shifted again, however; the race to the postseason, and the best seeds, looks like it’s going to be a photo finish.

Likewise, Windham has looked impressive this year as well. Despite Friday’s loss, they’re still well on the plus side of .500, at 7-4. A recent win by Cheverus bumped the Stags exactly alongside the Eagles in A East – the teams have identical tournament indices, occupying the fourth and fifth slots. The only team whose position looks secure, anywhere in Class A, is Brunswick, at 11-0. The Dragons are a full 72 Heal Points ahead of Lewiston (9-2).

Eagles head coach Pete Small also underscored the importance of the first four minutes to Westbrook’s eventual victory.

“We came out flat; they found seams early,” he said, “but our kids immediately tightened that back up, and that’s why we played head-to-head the rest of the way. I think we were prepared – we’re fortunate in that we see them a lot, they see us a lot; it’s similar to Gorham.”

Oliver notched the game’s opening point at 10:34, a low bouncer from maybe 30 feet out. A scant 19 seconds later, Steve Shackley made it 2-0, picking up a Post pass from outside-right and relaying it past Eagles keeper Jacob Dionne.

Another 43 seconds after that, Curtis Knapton found Tom Kostopoulous for the quick redirect and 3-0. Windham had barely touched the ball at this point, and when Knapton set up John Tibbetts for 4-0, it looked like they might never get their sticks on it – except to have it immediately taken away again.

Of course the action didn’t actually unfold that way. Instead, Windham bounced resiliently back: Griffin Jacobson fed Zack Callahan for the 4-1 goal at 7:48 and Brian Kelley pushed across right – through heavy Blazes defense – for an unassisted bounce-shot into the far corner of Alex LeBlanc’s net at 6:02.

After that, the squads traded stretches on the attack. By the break, the Eagles had narrowed their deficit to 8-5; in the early third quarter, they pulled even closer. Knapton to Post put Westbrook on top 9-5 at 10:53, but Jacobson converted on a wraparound at 7:10 to make it 9-6, and Ross Bachelder shoveled home a rebound at 5:21 to make it 9-7.

From there, though, the Blazes regained the edge. Steve Shackley, Post, Oliver and Ryan Shackley each added one more for Westbrook as the contest ticked toward its conclusion, while only the Eagles’ Zach Hough managed to find the back of net again for his team – and that in the final two minutes. 13-8 at the close.

Post finished with four goals and one assist, and Oliver with a hat trick. Kostopoulous had two goals, as did Steve Shackley, and Tibbetts and Ryan Shackley had one apiece. Windham effectively shut down Knapton, a perennial threat, although he certainly made his presence felt in other ways, directly setting up roughly half a dozen of the Blazes’ goals. Never underestimate the value of a playmaker.

Plowman praised a number of his players, including Post. “Grayson, freshman, plays like a senior,” he said of the young starter. “He’s a heck of a kid and we’re glad to have him.”

Plowman also lauded LeBlanc in the cage. “Our goalie does a nice job; he steps up big when we need him to,” he said.

LeBlanc stopped his share of spectacular shots after Windham found its groove. But he has a moment-by-moment mentality that keeps him focused.

“I don’t really like to think about the pressure,” he said. “It’s just one shot at a time, short memory. You let something in, you’ve got to forget it quick, move on to the next one.

“You make a key save, it is exhilarating, but at the same time, you let in that goal, it’s not fun. You take the good with the bad. Like I said, it’s on to the next one.”

Plowman also directed props at Oliver. “Our faceoff guy, Noah, does a nice job for us. He comes out strong.”

“I just clear my head, and wait for the sound of the whistle,” said Oliver. “After that whistle goes, it’s a war; whoever gets the ball, gets the ball. Every single faceoff. And you’ve always got to have a backup plan; if you don’t have a backup plan, it’s not going to turn out great.”

The victory was critical for Westbrook, as Plowman observed. “Heal-Points-wise, we want to host a game, obviously, in the first round of the playoffs,” he said. “Windham’s worth a lot of points, and they’re going to help us achieve that. This is also the first time our program’s won eight games, ever. It’s a huge win for us.”

And after dropping a pair of recent games, one to Cheverus and another to TA, the Blazes were eager to get back to their winning ways.

“We lost the last two games,” said Post. “We were up there for a while, and now we’re lower in the seed. We really want to get back up there, and maybe get a win in the playoffs.”

“This game was probably one of the most important games of the season,” said Oliver. “We knew this was a dealbreaker; we had to bounce back. Everyone on this team wanted to bounce back from those two hard losses. Those were heartbreaking for us.

“The season started off good, with that Scarborough win. After that, we got in the mindset of, ‘Wow, we can surprise some people.’ We started working harder and harder and harder, and once we knew that we’re, like, potentially good enough, we’ve got to step it up. We’ve got to prove ourselves.”

Windham fell recently to Gorham, but then bounced back handily against Deering – though Small is cautious about ignoring the danger any team presents.

“In this league, I don’t think we can overlook any team. It’s cliche? to say, but it really is (true). On any given day, you have a let-down, and we’ve had a couple let-downs this year. Deering is one of those, they play defensive, they play tough; we had Scarborough, then we had Gorham, then we had Deering, then we had Westbrook. For us, I don’t think we could look past Deering.

“So we had four in a row where I think our kids elevated and played really well. What I like is, there’s not a consistent mistake that’s being made. There’s just a misstep here, a misstep there. So we’ve got to tighten that up.”

Westbrook closes their schedule on Wednesday, after Current Publishing’s print deadlines, with a home bout versus Deering, ninth in A East. Windham capped their schedule on Tuesday as well, hosting Massabasic. The Mustangs linger in A West’s last-place slot.

Westbrook’s Grayson Post finished with four goals and an assist in the Blazes’ win at Windham.Noah Oliver hashed a hat trick for Westbrook in their 13-8 win over Windham on Friday.Westbrooker Steve Shackley chases after an airball in Windham on Friday.Windham’s Zack Callahan runs into some stiff Westbrook opposition and looks to dodge around.Griffin Jacobson gets by Westbrook defender David Redmond on his way to a shot in the Eagles’ loss on Friday.Windham’s Ross Bachelder keeps a step ahead of Westbrook’s John Tibbetts in the Eagles’ Friday-night, 13-8 loss to the visiting Blazes.