LEWISTON — Lewiston’s Charlotte Gastonguay was looking forward to Saturday morning’s girls lacrosse game against her old school, St. Dominic Academy, as the COVID-19 pandemic stopped her from playing against her old team last season. 

Gastonguay got to play the Saints in field hockey as a Blue Devil this past fall, but she said lacrosse is her favorite sport.

“I really wanted to beat them,” Gastonguay said.

The senior scored early and often as the Blue Devils cruised to a 16-5 victory over their rivals, applying pressure on defense, scooping the majority of ground balls and moving the ball with a chemistry of a team that had been playing together for months, not in just its second game of the season. 

The Lewiston senior scored eight goals — four in each half — and facilitated a lot of the offense Saturday. 

Gastonguay knew she would receive a lot attention, and St. Dom’s coach Frank Dow tried to warn his players about her prowess while also bemoaning her on-field antics.  

“We were preparing for Lewiston. We knew Gastonguay was one of their strong players, so the goal was to shut her down and play our game,” Dow said. “From what I heard, and I don’t want to throw cheap shots, but what I heard was Gastonguay went complaining to the refs saying our player was all over her, and that’s going to happen if you’re a good player. The ref bought into it, so we kept getting calls.”

Gastonguay wasn’t worried about her individual statistics Saturday.

“I’ve played them in field hockey, but lacrosse is my sport and I think everyone wants to beat them because it’s a great rivalry, but I kind of had a feeling they would try to face guard me, so I thought, ‘If I don’t score, I just want to get other people to score,’” Gastonguay said. “That happened and I was really proud.”

Lewiston scored twice in the first 3:15 of the game, but both times St. Dom’s answered quickly. The Blue Devils didn’t flinch and kept applying the pressure to make it 5-2 off one of Gastonguay’s four first-half goals with 14:37 left before halftime. 

Brie Dube scored two of her three goals in the first half but was finding her teammates in successful positions over and over again, many times Gastonguay. 

“We are really good friends off the field so I think that helps us know where each other is going to be, and I think that’s really cool,” Gastonguay said of her connection with Dube on the field.

“Before I go to goal, I like to set other people up first,” Dube added. “So I’ll try to do that because I always like to see other people have that opportunity.”

Gastonguay received a lot of attention from the Saints while she was scoring and opening up plays for her teammates. 

“We have some tremendous chemistry here,” Lewiston coach Tracey Blaisdell said. “The girls voted Charlotte captain and it speaks volumes to the leadership and camaraderie. There are a lot of positive things happening on our team and Charlotte has just been amazing on the team, and I think they all have a lot of chemistry.”

St. Dom’s received two goals from Emma Roy in the first half, as well as two from Taryn Cloutier. In the second half, Cloutier added a third. 

Still, Dow warned his players earlier in the week about Lewiston and knew they’d come to play. 

“Emma Roy did good. She ran the ball because our short pass game wasn’t working,” Dow said. “I don’t have a lot to say; it’s starting over on Monday to get our game back. Yesterday at practice they were taking Lewiston lightly and I said ‘You can’t, this is the battle of the bridge.’ But they did, and it’s a bitter taste and I hope it stays for a while because you know what, you can’t give any team that type of disrespect because you never know when they’ll have their best game.”

Lewiston’s Cecilia Miller scored three goals, while Rebecca Lussier and Lilly Gish each added a goal of their own. 

“Cecilia Miller really stepped up today and had some really great goals,” Gastonguay said.