After a slow first half, the Red Eddies pulled away from their rivals, the Lewiston Blue Devils 3-0 on Tuesday afternoon at Sherwood Heights Elementary School.

“We were kind of running into each other’s positions a little bit at first,” EL coach Greg Perkins said. “I thought we passed better in the second half. We were running into each other, we had trouble with the 5-yard rule in the first half.”

The 5-yard rule — a point of emphasis of the officials this seasone — is when a team has a free hit and the opposition is suppose to give 5 yards of space. Violating the rule results in a warning, followed by a two-minute penalty for the second offense and a five-minute penalty for a third offense.

The Red Eddies (2-1) racked up four infractions in the first half, resulting in 12 minutes playing a man down.

“Hopefully we need to figure out what 5 yards is,” Perkins said. “It’s here to there, it’s not hard. For some reason, it’s a tough concept for some kids, but they will get it. Like I said, once we got back to full strength and spread out, we did a good job in the second half.”

Lewiston only took a warning.

The Blue Devils wished they executed more in the transition game when they were a man up.

“I think at that time, for some reason, the ball was on our defensive side and the defense couldn’t get it out,” Lewiston senior forward Kasey Talarico said. “We needed to get it out. If we had a good transition, we would have gotten a goal. We couldn’t get it out our defensive zone.”

Just before the 10-minute mark of the opening half, Kiara Fournier found the back of the net for the lone goal of the half. EL had its opportunities to expand the lead in the first half, firing 15 shots towards the Lewiston cage.

Halftime provided the break the Red Eddies needed, as they came out strong in the second half. Kaylie Vallee put home the Red Eddies’ second goal 3:28 into the half. Bella Coulombe found Elizabeth Bellman right at the net for the third goal with 12:19 remaining.

Spreading the ball around has been something EL has been strong at early in the season.

“Last game, I had three girls each with two goals for me,” Perkins said. “So we spread it around and we need to keep doing that. That’s good; that means we are in position, we are passing when we should pass, we will have a lot kids scoring.”

Defensively, the Red Eddies were strong, only allowing one shot to reach goal in the first half — and starter Emmy Lashua made the save. Delaney Morneau received playing time in goal in the second half for EL.

Veterans on the defense helped limit the shots from the Blue Devils’ offense.

“I have some good experience back there,” Perkins said. “They are all kids that played before. I have a good seasoned (defensive group), and I need them. I am using two goalies, like I said, because I lost my goalie due to graduation. It’s still a work in progress. We need (the defense) to give them some protection to they figure out the game a little bit more because the are both relatively new to the game.”

For Lewiston coach Randy Richardson, the Blue Devils (0-3) need to come together as a team.

“As you saw, we have talented individuals, these two captains (Talarico and Jazy Dumais) are two of the most talented girls I have coached in my entire career,” Richardson said. “The game is such that individual talent by themselves don’t create success. It’s the team work, it’s the team work in transition.”

nfournier@sunjournal.com