PORTLAND — Despite being short-handed on the bench due to injuries and illness, St. Dominic Academy played like it was at full strength on the ice.

The Saints scored the game’s first four goals and received scoring contributions from five different skaters in a 5-2 victory over Cheverus on Saturday at William B. Troubh Ice Arena.

“I think some leadership showed here tonight,” St. Dom’s coach Steve Ouellette said. “We’ve got a lot of guys out right now with either sickness or injury. A lot of people stepped up who haven’t had to play big minutes and I thought it was a pretty gritty performance by them tonight.”

Adam Poulin’s goal with 1:35 remaining was the final nail in the coffin, thwarting the Stags’ hopes of a third-period comeback. Poulin went five-hole on Cheverus goaltender Kyle Severance with a shot from the slot, quieting the hometown crowd.

“It felt pretty good, especially since they had all the momentum in the third period,” Poulin said. “It felt good to finally kind of take the momentum away and get the win.”

Prior to Poulin’s dagger, the Stags (8-3-1) had found momentum on the heels of two power-play goals. Cheverus skated 41 seconds with a 5-on-3 advantage following a roughing penalty by Matt Chasse and a tripping call to Gavin Bates, and in the final moments of the two-man advantage, Cheverus’ James Hannigan jammed home a puck in front of the net amid a scrum to get the Stags on the board.

James Kane lit the lamp 18 seconds later with a shot from the high slot to cut St. Dom’s lead down to 4-2 with 8:11 left in the third period and shift the momentum in Cheverus’ favor.

“I thought we worked pretty hard all night, we just didn’t get the breaks at times,” Cheverus coach Dan Lucas said. “We figured if we could get one we could get another one.”

The momentum belonged to St. Dom’s (8-1-1) in the first period as the Saints jumped out to a 3-0 lead on six shots. Brad Berube netted the first four minutes in, deking a defender before beating Severance with a backhand.

“We got a good start, we wanted to have a good first period,” Ouellette said. “We were fortunate to finish on some opportunities. I thought Cheverus played a great game. They kept battling right until the end. We got up on them by four and they certainty didn’t collapse.”

Noah Toussaint — a sophomore — and Gavin Bates — a freshman — netted the other first-period goals, both getting fortuitous bounces in the process.

Toussaint’s tally came off the draw as his shot bounced off the top of Severance’s mitt and into the net. Minutes later, Bates fired a shot toward the front of the net from the sideboards that popped up into the air off a defenseman and hit off the top of Severance’s helmet before crossing the goal line.

“We have a lot of kids out, but we decided we needed to come up above that and skate hard,” Berube said. “We knew they were going to be big hitters. We used our speed and got shots on net.”

Ryan Lutrzykowski made it 4-0 three minutes into the second period. After the Saints caused a turnover at the blue line, Lutrzykowski knocked in a loose puck sitting on the goal line.

The Stags held a 25-21 edge in shots. They fired 10 of the first 11 shots in the third period.

Kyle Welsh finished with 23 saves in net for the Saints, while Severance made 16 stops for Cheverus.