Pelletier’s goal 12:37 into the second half tied the game and was enough to support an excellent defensive effort by the Red Eddies in a 1-1 standoff with their rivals Tuesday.

“I knew this was going to be a big game for me. Senior year, last time I’ll play Lewiston High School, the rival team that I’ve been growing up through school with,” said Pelletier, who is headed to Lefroy, Ontario to play in the Greater Metro Junior ‘A’ Hockey League. “This game meant a lot to me, especially scoring the goal.”

Despite standing water on the sideline and long grass that helped to slow down Lewiston, the Blue Devils still held a huge edge in shots, 27-5. But the overwhelming majority of those shots came from outside the box, including Benji Abdisalan Saban’s goal that put Lewiston ahead 8:50 into the second half.

“I thought we played good, solid defense,” said EL coach Dave Morin, whose team was playing its season-opener. “We forced them to shoot long. They did dribble by us a couple of times, but in the second half, except for the last seven seconds, we really were making them shoot from a ways out.”

“I think we played right into EL’s strategy of packing it in and taking away some of the things that we did best,” Lewiston coach Mike McGraw said. “I think we’re a pretty good passing team, but we played right into the middle and forgot to play the outside of the game.”

Lewiston (0-1-1) controlled the ball for most of the first half but only had two quality breakaways. EL’s defense, led by Taylor Ramich, Richard Grondin and Corey Morin, regularly cleared the ball out and stayed aggressive on Lewiston’s forwards despite drawing two yellow cards early int he first half.

EL didn’t get its first official shot on goal until near the 30-minute mark. The Blue Devils had two open-net opportunities against EL goalie Ben Bowles (16 saves) but had one shot go wide and one cleared by a Red Eddie.

“We knew we were going to have to play a lot of defense today,” Pelletier said. “We just had to step to the ball and just support, basically.”

Bowles’ best save came in the 33rd minute, when he leaped high into the air to tip Ibrahim Achekh’s attempt over the crossbar.

Abdisalan Saban finally broke the deadlock with a rocket from about 30 yards out that zipped past Bowles and inside the left post.

The Eddies made the most of their first corner kick of the day. Zach Tannenbaum’s kick flew into the middle of the box, bounced off of Soucy and right to the head of a waiting Pelletier, who beat Soucy to the far side to tie the game.

“It was a decent ball and the goalie mishandled it,” said Pelletier, whose last game will be Saturday’s home contest with Oxford Hills. “I was there to put it over him with the head.”

“The only weak spot that we thought Lewiston had, and they don’t really have any, is driven balls into the box,” Morin said. “We didn’t have as many opportunities as you’d like, but we said when we got them, that’s where we wanted to do it.”

Lewiston nearly got a breakaway chance late in the half when Abdisalan Saban found Dahir Muktar as he raced past his defender, but Bowles reacted quickly and beat him to the ball. Soucy returned the favor on the other end when Ian Therriault had Guled Mohamed set up for a breakaway late in regulation.

Lewiston got the only shots in overtime (four overall, one on goal). Muktar had the best chance to go one-on-one with an EL defender about 15 yards from the goal, but with the clock winding down inside of five seconds, he didn’t have time to gather the pass in and get off a good shot.

“It used to be that all we did was play defense, but we took pride in playing defense. I thought this team had lost that a little bit,” Morin said. “Today I think we were proud of our defense.”