OAKLAND — Sieve! Sieve! Sieve!

It is a chant Messalonskee High School goaltender Elijah Tuell heard all too often at the beginning of the season, his first as the starting goaltender for the Eagles.

“That’s sort of what the issue was in the beginning, I kind of caved under the pressure,” Tuell said, “but I’ve acclimated fine and this is where I belong.”

Taking over as a starting goalie is never easy, but there is added pressure when your predecessor, Ben Weeks, did not lose a game in his senior season en route to a state championship. After a rocky start, Tuell is starting to live up to those lofty standards though.

“The Bangor game that was a tough loss for him,” Messalonskee coach Joe Hague said. “After that he really started focusing on his game and as you can see for the last (seven) games he’s just really been standing on his head and doing everything this team needs him to do.”

The Bangor game in question — which came on the heels of giving up five goals each in wins over Winslow and John Bapst — was a 6-1 loss to the Rams on Dec. 17 in which Tuell let up four goals within the contest’s first 10 minutes.

It also marked a turning point in the season for Tuell and the Eagles (10-1 Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference B), however, as they have not lost a game since.

In the seven games after the Bangor loss Tuell has given up a total of just six goals, and picked up a pair of shutouts along the way against Hampden and Brewer.

Tuell — who was not in the lineup for the Eagles’ 11-8 win over Houlton/Hodgdon Monday due to illness — said he did not change much in his approach after the Bangor game, but he did get a few pointers from a former Messalonskee standout goalie.

“Nate DelGiudice came and he helped me with some things,” Tuell said. “There was one when I was coming out to the right side I was stopping on my right foot instead of my left, and it’s a huge positional thing where if you do that right you take up a lot more space. He taught me a lot about moving across the crease and butterfly and just that kind of stuff.”

The Eagles have one more game this week Saturday afternoon at Sukee Arena against Presque Isle before they get a chance at redemption when they travel to take on Bangor Wednesday, Jan. 28.

“We know we’ve been improving, obviously the record and the scores shows that but I think the kids want that retribution and a little bit of payback,” Hague said. “I don’t think they got our complete ‘A’ game and I think we’re a little bit better team now and they are too. I think it’s going to be a great game.”

•••

Cody Martin has always been a goal scorer.

“Ever since I started playing I’ve always been driven to score a lot of goals,” Martin said after netting four goals in the Lawrence/Skowhegan co-op’s 8-4 win over Brunswick. “Every goal counts. After the game they don’t look at how you scored it, they look at how many scored.”

This season Martin is once again leading the Bandits (5-5-1) in scoring with 21 goals in 11 games, and he’s getting those scores in a number of different ways.

“He’s a natural goal scorer. No matter where he is on the ice he’s a threat,” Bandits coach Ted Fabian said. “He’ll score the ugly goals, he’ll score the pretty goals but he always seems to find a way to put it in the net.”

Martin has played a crucial role in the team’s resurgence, as he has scored 10 of the Bandits’ 29 goals during their current four-game win streak.

•••

Waterville might have one of the youngest teams in Eastern B, but that has not stopped the Purple Panthers from competing amongst the top teams in the class.

Thanks to a 6-3 win over Brewer (6-3-2) the Purple Panthers upped their record to 7-4 and did so largely on the contributions of underclassmen.

Six different Waterville players accounted for 16 points in Monday’s win, five of which came from juniors Nick Dennis and Michael Oliveira. The remaining 11 came courtesy of sophomores Dalton Henderson, Jackson Aldrich, Andrew Rodrigue, Zach Smith and freshman Cody Pellerin, while sophomore Nathan Pinnette finished with 24 saves in goal.

Waterville coach Dennis Martin did note, however, that while the team is young, it is not entirely green.

“All these guys have experience,” Martin said. “A lot of them played a lot of minutes last year.”

• • •

After a strong start to the season, Gardiner (3-7 Western B) has hit a rough patch, as its 2-0 loss to Greely was its fifth straight.

“It’s been a tough six games, that’s for sure,” Tigers coach Jeff Ross said. “Special teams has hurt us a little bit. We haven’t produced on our power play much and our penalty kill hurt us against Yarmouth. “We’re struggling to start games right now.”

If there has been a bright spot during Gardiner’s recent skid, however, it has been the play of sophomore goaltender Michael Poirier. Last week in a 4-0 loss to Yarmouth, he finished with 43 saves and against Greely he stopped 47 shots.

Heading into the season, Ross was not sure how Poirier would handle the starting job, but 10 games into the season, it has been clear that he is ready for the role.

“He has worked his butt off for us and it’s paid off,” Ross said. “He’s only had one game that he struggled and the rest of the games he’s the reason we had a chance. He’s absolutely been a star for us this year.

“To be honest, that was a question mark. He’s definitely been a strong part for us. In the beginning of games, he’s held us in and he gives us an opportunity to win.”

• • •

The Tigers are not the only ones looking to snap their losing streak, as the Kents Hill boys hockey team (7-10 New England Prep School Athletic Conference) finds itself on a five-game skid of its own after starting the season 7-5.

“We’ve had a couple close games that could have gone etiher way,” first-year Kents Hill coach Douge Friedman said. “We came off of a pretty good stretch in tournament play around Christmas and New Year’s in the Boston area.

“…We’ve got to regroup, button up in the defensive zone and find a way to score a few more goals and we’ll be OK.”

The Huskies will look to its top line of forwards Connor Cassidy, Matt Henderson, of Scarborough, and center Mark Snyder, of Cumberland, to get the job done. Cassidy currently leads Kents Hill with 10 points, while Henderson and Snyder have totaled eight each.

“Overall, I’m pretty pleased with where we’re at,” Friedman said. “We’re getting into the core stretch of our games and the guys have already come a long way since the beginning of the year.”

Evan Crawley — 621-5640

ecrawley@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @Evan_Crawley