WINSLOW — The sting of a senior night loss was only fleeting for the Winslow High School boys hockey team.

Six days after No. 5 Brewer (10-8-1) beat the fourth-seeded Black Raiders in the final game of the regular season, Winslow returned the favor with a 5-3 victory over the Witches in a Class B North quarterfinal Tuesday at Sukee Arena.

Winslow (13-4-2) will next face rival and No. 1 seed Waterville (16-1-1) in a semifinal game Saturday at 8 p.m. at Sukee Arena.

Seniors Jacob Grenier and Dameron Rodrigue led the way with two goals apiece for Winslow while Jimmy Fowler had two assists and an empty net goal. Dylan Severance had a goal and an assist to pace the Witches. Winslow’s Andrew Beals and Brewer’s Tyler Friel each finished with 32 saves.

“Playoffs are a whole new season,” Grenier said. “We practiced harder this week and we just came ready to play.”

Winslow fell behind 2-1 just 51 seconds into the second period on a goal from Brewer’s Severance but the remainder of the period belonged to the Black Raiders.

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Rodrigue tied the contest off a nice feed from Fowler with 10:58 to play in the period, and it was Fowler once again playing the role of facilitator a little over five minutes later when he found Grenier out front on the power play to give Winslow the lead for good.

“It was perfect,” Grenier said. “I saw him come around behind the net with it, I saw an open lane to sneak into the net and I just drove the net and he just passed it out front.”

Rodrigue provided a back-breaking blow to the Witches with just 2.9 seconds to play in the period as he crashed the net and put home a rebound on the power play to give Winslow a commanding 4-2 advantage.

“We learned something last week. They played us tough last week and we knew that we had to play three strong periods to walk away with a win,” Winslow coach Andy Dube said. “The big period for us was that second period. They stepped it up.”

From there the Black Raiders locked in defensively and Beals made the necessary saves to keep Winslow out in front. Fowler made it 5-2 with his empty netter with 46.3 seconds remaining before Trey Wood scored for Brewer with 13.9 seconds to play.

“We played smart,” Dube said. “This is a mature group and they’ve been in the system for three years now. They know what it takes to win a game once you’ve got the lead.”

Evan Crawley — 621-5640

ecrawley@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @Evan_Crawley


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