AUBURN — After a furious rally just to get to overtime, Edward Little had two prime opportunities to score the game-winning goal in the sudden-victory extra session.

But Windham senior goalie Jacob Dionne stood tall. In seemingly the blink of an eye, Dionne’s classmate had the ball at the other end of the field, and like he did six previous times, Zach Hough didn’t miss.

Hough scored his seventh goal with 53 seconds left in overtime, Dionne made 15 saves and the Eagles survived for a 13-12 victory over the Red Eddies in a Class A North boys’ lacrosse battle.

Hough’s heroics almost never happened. With the Eagles (3-0) trying to get the ball down the field, head coach Pete Small tried calling for a timeout as soon as the ball got into Windham’s offensive end. Officials did not grant the request. Ross Batchelder fed Hough on a quick counter-attack before Small could set up an offensive play — and before the EL defense could set itself up.

“At the end of the game the ball’s moving fast, the officials are moving quick,” Small said. “The fact that (Zach) was able to put that in was a good thing.”

What Small couldn’t do, EL coach Dave Barton did just 30 seconds into the four-minute overtime. Barton called a quick timeout to set up his offense, which instantly threw the ball away out of the timeout. But EL goalie Brandon Asselin intercepted a pass on a Windham counter and got the ball back into the EL offensive zone for another possession. The Red Eddies (1-3) finally got the looks Barton was hoping for, but Dionne stopped them cold.

“It’s frustrating. Goalie made two big saves,” Barton said. “We draw something up for that look, we get that look, and he made a big save.

“You wish you had those shots back, and maybe put it in another spot.”

Small called Dionne “under-heralded” among the state’s goalies. The senior stood on his head for the second straight game, after the Eagles downed Portland in double overtime on Thursday.

It took a mixture of EL fortitude and Windham discomposure for the Red Eddies to rally from a 12-8 deficit early in the fourth quarter. Three of EL’s four goals in the final 10 minutes of regulation came with a man-advantage, including a pair of 6-on-4 goals.

“Every day we come in with, ‘What are our goals of the game?’ And our No. 1 goal was … to keep out of the penalty box,” Small said. “We knew it. We knew if we get into the penalty box we’re going to be hurt.”

Having the extra attacker allowed the Red Eddies to start playing the offense Barton wanted them to employ from the start. Of the seven second-half goals EL scored six were assisted.

“We started moving the ball,” Barton said. “We saw in the second half, specifically the fourth quarter, playing selfless. And that’s a fun offense to be in.”

Ganan Mancini got the rally ball rolling for the Red Eddies, scoring from Matt Verrill just over two minutes into the fourth. Isaac Cote scored the lone unassisted goal of the half 46 seconds later. Mancini fed Eli McBride on the man-up a tick before the four-minute mark to cut it to 12-11.

The tying goal took a while to materialize. When it did, Spencer Frahn found Mancini with 19 seconds left in a 6-on-4 situation.

“We’re a team that’s going to battle every time, and I think you saw that in the second half,” Barton said.

Frahn and Mancini hooked up twice in the third quarter, and Verrill found Frahn for a man-up goal with just over a minute left in the period.

Hough scored with 8 seconds left in the third to make it 11-8, then scored again less than two minutes into the fourth.

He scored two times each in the first and second quarters, and Thomas Lekouski added two of his own in the second. Lekouski’s came back-to-back after the Red Eddies took their only lead of the game early in the period. The Eagles finished the first half on a 5-1 run.

“We were a little bit dejected in the first half,” Barton said. “I think we were a little confused defensively to start.”

Saturday’s game was an unofficial home opener for the Red Eddies, who had to play their first home game across the bridge at Bates College. They almost made their first game in their home city a happy one.

“The first thing we said to them (after the game) is ‘as a competitor you should be upset,'” Barton said. “But at the same time we battled.”

wkramlich@sunjournal.com