Gorham 10

South Portland 5

David Gushee racked up four goals and Brendan Ryan had three to lead Gorham past visiting South Portland, 10-5, Saturday night at USM Ice Arena. The Rams tallied four goals in the opening period and never looked back. The Riots got five goals from five different skaters.

“I think that we came into this game with the idea that we had to win to make the playoffs,” Ryan said. “We still might make it without it, but we thought we had to win to make it. So we had a lot of confidence and team work.”

The Rams wasted little time getting to work as Justin Bahr got the puck to Gushee, who recorded his first goal of the game just 1:36 into the first period for a quick 1-0 lead.

That lead was short-lived.

Donny Maietta tied the game just over a minute later with an assist from Jake Tack and Jim Doria.

The game remained tied at a goal apiece for much of the period. But at the 9:51 mark, the Rams broke the stalemate when Gushee netted his second goal of the game off a pass from Jacob Viel. That goal opened up the floodgates.

At 12:24 of the period, Gushee set up Ryan for his first goal of the game. This one a short-handed goal just seconds before a penalty to Spencer Violette expired. That gave Gorham a 3-1 lead. Just over two minutes later it was Ryan feeding Sean Grandmaison and just like that the Rams were up 4-1.

“I think we just had a lot of two-on-ones and finished really well,” Ryan said. “We had a lot of good passes and good shots. I guess that’s what it took.”

South Portland cut the deficit in half early in the second period. Dustin Matthews netted the second Red Riot goal of the night at the 1:47 mark of the second period off an assist from Aidan Boyce and Matthews.

Just a couple of minutes later. the Riots cut the Gorham lead down to just one goal. Boyce got one past Gorham goalie Donny Gearan to make it a 4-3 score. Maietta and Nick Griffin assisted on the play.

Just 20 seconds after Boyce’s goal, Gushee completed his hat trick off a pass from Violette and the Rams once again led by two, 5-3. They pushed the lead back to three at 8:51 of the period when Grandmaison recorded his second goal of the night.

Griffin scored for South Portland in the closing minutes of the third period to make it a 6-4 score.

In the third, the penalties came fast and furious.

The first came when Kevin Boucher was called for interference at 2:30. During the ensuing power play, the Rams added a goal to their lead when Travis Alves scored from Gushee. That gave Gorham a 7-4 lead.

The penalties kept coming and so did the Gorham goals. At 6:22 the Rams tallied another goal when Gushee scored for the fourth time.

Gorham cashed in on a power play chance later in the third when Jim Doria was called for holding at 6:20 of the third. Ryan scored his second of the night during the man advantage when he picked up a loose puck in front of the net and buried it for a 9-4 lead.

Ryan completed his hat trick and the Gorham scoring at the 11-minute mark and Gorham had a 10-4 lead. Brendan Martin scored the final South Portland goal of the night with 14 seconds left in the game but it was too little, too late.

“There were a lot of penalties especially at the end,” Ryan said. “It’s pretty hard, but we did a good job on the kill keeping them from scoring.”

The Rams improved to 5-13 with the win. They currently sit in the final playoff spot for the tournament, which starts this Friday. The Riots fell to 9-8-1 with the loss and were scheduled to face Sanford on Monday.

“I was a big game for us; last game before playoffs,” said Gorham’s Jeremy Randall. “We wanted to try to get some momentum going in and get some points on the board.”