Blazes trump Biddeford, Rams defeat Blazes

The Blazes crushed visiting Biddeford 17-2 in the first round of the postseason last Wednesday, June 8, John Tibbetts posting five goals for Westbrook. Three days later, however, Tibbetts and Co. met their match when rival Gorham came to town, and Alex York alone scored nine times en route to a shocking, 14-4 Rams blowout.

No. 7 Biddeford at No. 2 Westbrook

The Blazes wasted little time kicking off a rout of Biddeford on June 8.

“Very happy,” Westbrook head coach Pete Lyons said of the result. The kids played hard, they worked hard all year; we struggled a little at the beginning, but we’re playing well right now. It’s the right time to be playing well.”

Tibbetts tallied the game’s first goal roughly three minutes into the opening quarter. The Tigers did recoup the point, but Tibbetts – and Grayson Post (twice), Connor Dougherty, Curtis Knapton (twice) and Ryan Shackley – all responded before the end of the first half to give the Blazes an 8-1 advantage at the break.

“It’s the first-ever Westbrook playoff win, first-ever 10-win season,” said Lyons happily. “The two-seed definitely helps, although [Biddeford] is a good team. Their No. 9 player is terrific, their No. 50 is terrific; their goalie can be a real challenge – but we were able to solve that early. The kids played hard throughout.”

Knapton finished with three goals and two assists in the bout, Post with three goals; Dougherty and Shackley each earned two goals, and Dougherty added four assists and Shackely one. Tommy Kostopoulos and Brandon Labbe notched a goal apiece.

Lyons expressed satisfaction in all aspects of his boys’ play.

“Our defense was terrific and never let them really get anything going,” he said. “That would include Alex (LeBlanc, G) and all of our close defenders: Connor Kerwin, his first career start, he stepped up and had a big game, replacing David Redmond, who’s dinged up; Steve Shackley, and Jared Clark was terrific on No. 9.”

“Offensively, it was a pretty thorough team effort,” Lyons said. “Tibbetts is a terrific shooter. Curtis runs the show. And our Attack played really well, all three of them.” Sophomores Shackley and Post and freshman Dougherty, comprise the Blazes’ attack.

The quarterfinals win bumped Westbrook to 10-3 on the year, and earned them the opportunity to face off with neighboring Gorham.

No. 3 Gorham at No. 2 Westbrook

Gorham-Westbrook lax bouts are typically narrow and tense; indeed, when the teams met at the end of the regular season, the Blazes only managed victory 9-8 in double-OT. This one, however, snowballed from the beginning into a big Rams win.

“That double-overtime loss hit everyone hard,” said York. “That feeling, after the game, when we were that close – just so close – we didn’t want that feeling again. So we told each other, ‘that’s not happening again,’ and right from the start, we gave it our all. We remembered that feeling in the back of our heads and kept pushing, all 48 minutes.”

“The first game, we made a lot of mistakes,” said Gorham head coach Dan Soule. “A lot of turnovers. We went three out of 23 for faceoffs, so they had 20 more possessions. I didn’t think we played up to our potential. We knew what we needed to fix … The guys worked hard to make the changes, and they worked today.”

To be clear, the Blazes’ faceoff titan, Noah Oliver, still dominated on the X, so Gorham had to be doing something else differently as well. “We neutralized their fast breaks,” Soule said. ”We forced them to play settled offense, played great one-on-one defense and didn’t force the slide.”

“We would’ve liked to have given them a better game,” said Lyons. “They played a terrific game, Gorham, and I tip my hat to them. They were very aggressive defensively, and their big guns on offense were clicking. They were just terrific right from the get-go.”

The opening four minutes unfolded scorelessly, but then the Rams’ biggest offensive guns launched their opening salvo: Cam Wright scooted around the back of LeBlanc’s cage and shuttled the ball across in front to York for a quick, successful redirect and 1-0.

York, Wright and Co. rapidly unraveled Westbrook’s morning from there. York scored his second less than 60 seconds later, and two minutes after that, assisted Wright on his first.

York passed along the heaps of credit his performance garnered. “The whole motto was just to work hard,” he said, “because we knew if we if gave it our effort the whole time, then we were going to come out on top. And that’s what we did, we just worked our butt off. Carter (Landry), amazing in net. Defense – Ryan (Hamblen), Sam (Burghardt), Mat (Anderson) – everyone, all-around, played amazing.”

“Me and Cam (Wright), we’re like brothers, we work together, we work hard,” York said of his team’s chemistry on the attack. “Joe (Gallant), Tristan (Brunet) – everyone on offense works hard to pass the ball around and find the open looks. It’s just, the ball goes in the back of the net.”

Knapton finally put his boys on the board – the 4-1 point – with 36.5 seconds to play in the opening quarter. But as he whirled in close to Landry and took to the air to get a clear shot, he also took a hard hit – one that sent him to the sidelines for the remainder of the game.

Down Knapton (not to mention Redmond, a stalwart defensive starter), the Blazes’ hopes of keeping pace with the mighty Rams were hobbled. Westbrook boasts a great deal of hardworking talent, to be sure, but against an opponent like Gorham, any team would need its full complement of personnel.

“Curtis is our First-Team All-Conference, our first-ever Westbrook High School All-American player,” said Lyons. “He’s important to us, so that obviously affects things. But I don’t want to take anything away from Gorham; they played a great game.”

Soule was happy with his lineup’s performance from first man to last. “The whole team played awesome,” he said. “I hate to single out one or two players, because it’s usually the offensive players, but defensively, holding that team – [Westbrook] is a quality team and holding them to four is a huge feat; I don’t think it’s happened all year. That in itself is a huge accomplishment. Offensively, being able to run through our offense the way that we should and make good decisions with the ball – I think we only had a couple turnovers, which was a total flip-flop from last game.”

In addition to York’s nine goals, he tallied one assist. Wright finished with two goals and four assists. Tristan Brunet added a goal and two assists, and Joe Gallant and Brett Stiles added one apiece.

On the Westbrook side, Tibbetts tallied two goals and Kostopoulos one. Oliver and Post both assisted once, and Dougherty did so twice.

The result bumped Gorham to 12-2 on the season; they moved on to face No. 1 Scarborough in the A South Regional Final on Wednesday the 15th, after the American Journal’s print deadline. Westbrook retired for the year at 10-4.

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