Portland, ME – The Cape Elizabeth Capers snapped a three-game losing streak with a 4-0 win Thursday night over the South Portland Red Riots at the Portland Ice Arena.

The Capers’ points leader, senior forward Nick Breed had a big night with a hat trick and an assist, and goalie Kirby Saari recorded his first shutout of the season.

“I had a lot of help from my defense out there tonight,” said Saari, who posted 17 saves for the shutout. “We were able to shut down Nick Whitten (leading scorer for South Portland) and basically that helped me confirm that shutout tonight. I’m so excited right now, I can’t even tell you.”

“Most of my tougher shots were in the first (period). Toward the second and the third they were starting to die down because they were still running two lines.”

After a strong first period, the Red Riots started to get run down. An already short South Portland squad has suffered some more losses this season, and now their bench is down to only ten skaters.

“We lost our two best players a month ago, my goalie and my best forward,” said South Portland coach Joe Robinson.

“Jared (Wood) used to play goal, but he actually became a really good defenseman. So now we had to take him off defense and make him a goalie. Not only did we lose a starting all-state goalie from last year and my best forward but then I lose a defenseman making him a goalie. It’s a chain of events when you don’t have a lot of numbers that just causes problems.”

“I think knowing what we have and how many people we’ve lost this season, it’s pretty impressive the fact that we can even hang in there. We could have got blown out, but we didn’t.”

The South Portland squad got their fare share of good chances in the opening period, but Nick Breed capitalized on a turnover in the Capers defensive end and skated it into the offensive zone, sneaking around the last Red Riots defender with a burst of speed and lifting a backhander inside the post past Wood to give Cape Elizabeth a 1-0 lead with just 11 seconds to play in the first period.

From then on, Cape Elizabeth kept the momentum in their favor. Breed took control of another turnover behind the South Portland net and snuck out to the front of the net and put in his second of the night at 0:36 of the second period.

He completed the hat trick with a deflection on Charlie Salerno’s shot at 13:33. Donald Clark added the fourth goal for the Capers, poking home a rebound at 4:25 of the third period, assisted by Breed and Chris Grennon to cap of the 4-0 victory. Breed’s hat trick and assist puts him at 19 goals and 28 total points this season.

At one point in the second period, trailing by only two goals, South Portland looked as though they might catch a break while shorthanded. The puck took a strange bounce off the glass on a dump in, sending it to the corner of the net.

“I couldn’t really tell what happened,” said Saari. “I told my defender to go on the other side to play the puck, and then all of a sudden I noticed that it was right on the post. I guess it hit a turnbuckle and went right to the post and I just slid over there and I think I knocked the net off. It was just a really close play, I think it trickled in but I don’t really know what happened there.”

The goal was waved off because the net was ruled off the mooring before the puck crossed the goal line. South Portland wasn’t happy with the call, but ended up getting some sort of justice later in the game when a Cape Elizabeth goal was waved off due to a quick whistle from the ref. Wood made a save, but didn’t really have full control of the puck when the whistle sounded, it came loose and was tapped in just after, but was also waved off.

Capers coach Billy LeBlond was happy with his team’s effort and glad to see the three-game losing streak behind them.

“(Breed) played well. I think the whole team played well. We had a couple of defensemen that got a lot more ice time tonight, we had three lines going. It was good.”

“Kirby got tested quite a bit. I think Kirby is very key for us, I think we still have a little work to do on the defensive side. He’s getting some hard shots. Being a senior, he’s got quite a lot riding on it, so he’s playing hard and focusing pretty good.”

With tonight’s win, Cape Elizabeth improves to 5-3-2 on the season, while South Portland drops to 3-7-0.