AUBURN – Ignore the score and you can understand that both coaches basically got what they wanted.

For Phil Prideaux and his Oak Hill Raiders, it was a chance to recover from a bad loss to Mt. Ararat. For the Saints of St. Dom’s, it was all about playing the game right and learning from a better team.

It is the score that goes in the books however as Oak Hill’s Steve Robert scored five goals in leading the Raiders to a 10-1 win over the winless Saints Saturday afternoon.

“They are a much more athletic team,” said St. Dom’s coach Gary O’Connell. “They pass better and are very physical. I had hoped we would have played them more competitivly today though.”

The Raiders (4-3) came out firing, peppering Saints’ goalie Brendan Dyer in the opening minutes with shot after shot. The first quarter ended with Oak Hill holding a 4-0 advantage. Robert put home three in the game’s first 5:15. Ricky Pelletier added the fourth.

“We had to come in and play tough from the start,” said Robert. “We know they are better than their record playing all the tough southern teams that they do so we had to make sure we got a fast start.”

“This was an important win after that loss,” said Oak Hill coach Prideaux. “The guys needed it to both get over it as well as get ready for tough games coming up.”

For O’Connell, the intangibles became more important as he saw his team down 8-0 before Ryan McDonald scored the lone Saints goal with one second remaining in the half.

“We only took six penalties in the game,” said O’Connell. “That’s great. In the past when these two teams have played, they brought their football players, we brought our hockey players, and the games were rough. Today we both brought lacrosse players. For these two teams to play that clean is impressive. We took a couple of cheap penalties today but for the most part we played disciplined lacrosse. We do need to work on using our heads better out there at times.”

Robert and Pelletier added goals in the third quarter to close out the scoring.

“We did let down our intensity in the second half,” said Prideaux. “It’s hard not to in a game like this. We also took the priority off of scoring as well as we didn’t need more goals. We went to a 3-3 zone and tried to take time off the clock.”

“We are usually a second-half team,” said Robert. “But we didn’t need it today.”

Dyer recorded 16 saves for St. Dom’s (0-8) while Nick Sirois stopped 13 shots for the Raiders.

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