ORONO, Maine — Junior left wing Miles Randall’s second goal of the game, a shorthanded goal with 1:05 remaining in overtime, gave the Bangor High School hockey team a thrilling 3-2 victory over archrival Brewer in front of a large and energetic crowd in the annual “Fill the Alfond” game at the Alfond Arena in Orono.
Class A Bangor is now 2-1-1 while Class B Brewer fell to 2-2.
Marc-Andre Perron set up the goal after intercepting a Brewer pass, maneuvering around a Witch and taking a shot from the bottom of the left circle that was saved by Brewer junior goalie Ethan Hanscom.
The puck bounced behind the net where Perron retrieved it and flipped it into the crowded goalmouth where Randall jammed it home from the edge of the crease.
Both goalies were outstanding as Bangor senior Liam Doughty made 27 saves and Hanscom finished with 29 saves.
Brewer junior Nicholas Tozier forced overtime and completed a Brewer comeback from a 2-0 deficit when he scored with 4:50 left in the third period.
Bangor failed on a couple of attempts to clear the puck out of its zone and Grady Vanidestine corralled the puck and found Tozier alone in the middle of the slot.
Tozier fired a wrist shot that sailed over the glove of Bangor goalie Liam Doughty.
Randall’s first-period goal and junior defenseman Jackson Guimond’s second-period tally staked the Rams to a 2-0 lead before Brewer junior center Vanidestine cut the lead in half with 3:55 remaining in the middle period.
Randall scored with 2:14 left in the first period as he skated onto an errant Brewer clearing attempt from the corner and released a quick shot from the middle of the high slot that beat Hanscom.
Doughty was the only reason the Rams took a 1-0 lead into the first period intermission as the Witches completely outplayed the Rams in all phases of the game.
The Witches were quicker, won most of the loose-puck battles and had 12 shots on goal to Bangor’s 4 even though the Rams had the only two power plays.
Bangor mustered just one shot on goal during the game’s first 10 minutes.
Doughty made a series of saves just before Randall scored.
He made a point-blank save off Cam Dostie with 3:36 left in the period after Dostie was set up nicely by Vanidestine.
Doughty made a nice glove save off Vanidestine’s rising wrist shot from the left circle 24 seconds later and then made his best save of the period as he extended his right pad to rob Dostie, who sliced across the top of the crease and tried to tuck a backhander past Doughty.
Earlier in the period, Doughty had made back-to-back saves off Cade McKenney and Dostie.
Bangor expanded its lead at the 4:37 mark of the second period.
Bangor was able to generate one of its few sustained forechecks and Michael Moscone passed the puck out from behind the extended goal line to the open Guimond in the middle of the slot and Guimond snapped a low wrist shot that cleanly beat Hanscom past his right skate.
Vanidestine answered as he got behind the Ram defense and took a perfect pass from Dominic Stecher at the Bangor blue line and broke in alone before wristing the puck past Doughty.
Bangor had a chance to restore a two-goal lead as Lucas Lindsay broke in alone on Hanscom in the final seconds of the period but he shot wide as time elapsed.