HALLOWELL — Needed may be a slightly strong word to describe the Cony/Monmouth/Hall-Dale hockey team’s win over Edward Little on Friday afternoon at the Camden National Bank Ice Vault.

It was certainly an important one, though.

Anthony Brunelle scored 6:04 into the third period with 18 seconds remaining on a power play and his goal proved to be the difference for the Rams (8-4-0 Class A North) in a 2-1 victory over the Red Eddies (7-4-0). It was the Rams’ first win this season against a team currently in the top four in Heal points in Class A North — they had previously lost to Lewiston (7-1-0) 9-1 on Wednesday, St. Dominic Academy (4-5-0) 3-2 on Dec. 17 and Edward Little 4-3 on Dec. 9.

“We needed to beat a team that’s ahead of us just to get a little confidence and show what we’re capable of doing,” Rams head coach Chad Foye said. “What we hope to do is have this give us a little confidence going into the rest of the year.

“We can compete with anybody if we go out and work hard and just do our jobs.”

Brunelle’s goal was set up a few minutes earlier with the Rams working to kill off a penalty for too many men on the ice. Riley Boivin had the puck along the fan-side boards in the Red Eddies’ defensive zone as the final seconds ticked off the penalty, and his hard work was ultimately rewarded as he drew a hooking infraction on Edward Little’s Ben Steele with 9:38 left in the third.

The Rams had a few chances early on in the 5-on-4 opportunity but as the advantage wore in it seemed as if the chance would be wasted.

Cony/Monmouth/Hall-Dale’s second line of Brunelle, Tyler Sproul and Connor Perry made sure that did not happen, though, as defenseman Logan Leadbetter passed the puck up to Sproul, who in turn skated into the attacking zone. Sproul swung a pass from right to left to Brunelle, who settled the puck and flicked a shot on net from the top of the left circle.

The shot just clipped the stick of an Edward Little defender, causing the puck to rise slightly and travel into the back of the net over the right shoulder of goaltender Devin Dumont.

“I was looking for people in front of the net and everything and it just happened to be that no one was really there,” Brunelle said, “so I just let it go.”

Strong goaltending from Tom Small and aggressive forechecking in the final two minutes that prevented Edward Little from pulling Dumont until there were less than 10 seconds remaining allowed the Rams to hold on for the victory in the final eight minutes.

“(Small) made some pretty big saves,” Edward Little head coach Craig Latuscha said. “Unfortunately we didn’t score as many goals as we possibly could, their goalie played well and they took advantage of the chances they got.”

It was a strong game overall for the Rams’ second line, which has only been together for a few games now. After Tyler Couture gave the Red Eddies the lead just 1:46 into the contest, it was Perry who notched an unassisted goal with 53 seconds remaining in the opening period to tie the contest.

“We’ve really been clicking lately,” Brunelle said. “We just got put together four games ago and each game we’ve scored so I think we have good chemistry between the three of us.

“We didn’t think it was going to happen like that. When we got put together we were shocked but it benefited us a lot.”

Evan Crawley — 621-5640

ecrawley@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @Evan_Crawley