Lewiston’s Charlotte Gastonguay, middle, gets ready to take a shot on goal during a regular season game against Edward Little in Auburn. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Charlotte Gastonguay scored 73 goals this season for the Lewiston girls lacrosse team, but she is especially proud of the 21 assists she dished out.

“(Lacrosse) is a team sport, it’s not just one person, everyone has their specific job and we do it as a team,” Gastonguay said. “I always try to look for the open person or (to make) the extra pass because lacrosse can’t be done with one person. Honestly, I like assisting more than scoring. I give so much credit to Brie Dube for being behind the net and really facilitating the offense with the passing; without the assists, we won’t be scoring the goals.”

Dube led the Blue Devils with 36 assists.

Gastonguay’s scoring and passing helped Lewiston advance to the Class A North semifinals. After the season, the senior attack was named KVAC West Zone All-Conference. She also is the Sun Journal’s All-Region Girls Lacrosse Player of the Year.

The Blue Devils ran a motion offense this year, which assistant coach Leslie Klenk — Charlotte’s mother — brought over from St. Dominic Academy, where she was a head coach. Gastonguay played for her mom at St. Dom’s as a freshman and sophomore and helped the Saints win the Class C state title in 2019.

Lewiston head coach Tracey Blaisdell said Gastonguay already having a strong understanding of the motion offense helped create opportunities for her teammates.

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“It’s a very orchestrated (offense), with the variety plays in the motion offense,” Blaisdell said. “The timing has to be just right on the pass, and she understood that. She doesn’t throw the ball, there has to be a cut at a certain time by a certain player. Whether she’s the person making the pass or she was the person making the cut, she understood everybody had to be in a certain spot in order to run the (offense) well. She really understood that.”

Blaisdell said that Gastonguay has a high lacrosse IQ and can play any position. Even her defense is strong.

“I can put her in any position and she would do very well,” Blaisdell said. “She gets it. If you look at (our groundball stats), most of those players are defensive players, but she’s just as solid at causing turnovers, she’s just as strong. She’s just very well-rounded and she’s very aware.”

Gastonguay ranked fifth on the Blue Devils with 28 ground balls and third with 11 forced turnovers. She also won 64 draw controls this season.

Offense is where Gastonguay was especially dangerous, and opposing defenses tried their best to contain her.

“I have gotten a lot of bruises this year and I am still recovering from some of them,” Gastonguay said. “I think this year I got doubled the most. In the past years, I didn’t get the double teams as much, but this year I got double- and triple-teamed. I liked the pressure, it helps me become a better player because (playing) in college, that’s going to happen.”

She will be playing at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, where she again be teammates with her sister, Caroline Gastonguay, who was the Sun Journal’s All-Region Girls Lacrosse Player of the Year three times during her career at St. Dom’s.

While the Blue Devils’ season came to an end in the Class A North regional semifinals, with a 14-3 loss to Falmouth, Gastonguay said she liked that the team didn’t give up.

“Even though the score isn’t what we wanted or the outcome, our team played so hard,” Gastonguay said. “None of us gave up. If you were at the game, it didn’t look like we were down. Everyone was going 100%. I thought that was really cool because no one gave up, even though we were down by a lot. It speaks to the attitude and charisma of our team.”

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