WATERVILLE — The Thornton Academy ice hockey team has 14 seniors, all veterans from last season’s state championship run. Waterville, on the other hand, is a team loaded with underclassman, including eight sophomores.

That experience gap was evident throughout Saturday night’s game at Alfond Rink. Thornton capitalized on a flurry of Waterville penalties in the first period, scoring three power-play goals in the span of three and a half minutes, on its way to a 10-1 win.

Thornton improved to 3-0-0 while Waterville dropped to 0-3-0.

“We just came out there and got stuff going right off the get-go with the power play,” Thornton senior captain Tyler Danley, a defenseman, said. “We’ve got a lot of returning players, a lot of experience from the great year last year, and hopefully it rolls into this year.”

Waterville’s Dalton Denis was called for hooking 5 minutes, 48 seconds into the game, and less than a minute later, Aaron Saucier took a double minor for holding and contact to the head. The Panthers were also issued a bench minor when coach Dennis Martin argued the calls.

Robert Downing gave the Trojans a 1-0 lead at the 7:06 mark, and Nick Chen’s goal at 9:01 made it 2-0. Downing scored again with one second left on the bench minor penalty, swiping a backhand past Waterville goalie Cody Thibodeau for Thornton’s third power-play goal.

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CJ Maksut added a goal with a wrister from between the circles at the 11:01 mark, and the Trojans led 4-0 after a period.

“We got to the point in the first period, the penalties came back to haunt us. We lost our heads. Everything rolled from there,” Martin said. “They’re a good team, obviously the best team we’re going to see. They capitalized on the chances.”

Chen had three goals and two assists for Thornton, while Andrew Carignan added a goal and three assists.

“We played right to the end of the game. We rolled all four lines, and we just kept pounding them, every line we had,” Danley said.

Waterville’s lone goal came at 4:39 of the second, when J.T. Whitten scored on the power play.

Joe Ferrante and Avery Kibler combined for 18 saves for the Trojans. Thibodeau made 20 saves for the Panthers, while Dakota Gendreau had a pair.

Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242

tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com

 


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