AUBURN – It all starts with the hands for Jack Lavoie. They’ve taken a beating over the years from taking thousands of ground balls, yet they remain quick and soft and strong.

The St. Dom’s senior moved those hands over to shortstop this year after serving him well in the last two seasons at third base, where he earned an all-conference nod last year.

Now, those same hands are earning Lavoie recognition as one of the best defensive shortstops in Western Maine.

“He’s got great hands, lightning-quick hands. And he’s just so smooth,” said St. Dom’s coach Allan Turgeon. “He’s just made it look easy, as most really good athletes do. They make their position, their sport, look easy.”

It hasn’t come easy for Lavoie, and no one knows this better than Turgeon, who has coached him since Little League.

“I’ve always been on coach Turgeon’s team and he’s hit me millions of ground balls,” said Lavoie, who’s headed to the University of Pittsburgh in the fall to study business. “You lose it if you don’t keep working at it.”

“He gets here early and he’s the last one to leave,” Turgeon said. “He likes to take ground balls. If I were to sit here and hit five buckets of balls, he’d take five buckets.”

Turgeon calls Lavoie “the point man running the show,” and the backbone of a defense that has propelled the Saints to a 12-2 record and the second seed and a bye in the Western Class C playoffs, which begin today.

Lavoie’s ability to flash the leather earned him a spot in the starting lineup as a sophomore. His bat began to catch up last year, and this year he has improved his average nearly 100 points from his junior season. Now he’s hitting cleanup in a potent Saints lineup.

“He’s just a complete ballplayer this year. Every aspect of his game is clicking,” Turgeon said.

The Saints hope to have every aspect of their game clicking when they meet the winner of today’s Livermore Falls/Wiscasset prelim. After falling just one win shy of the state championship game last year, St. Dom’s will be disappointed with anything less than its first Western Maine title since 1997.

“We feel like we’ve got a really, really good chance, especially with the defense, and we have enough good hitting that whenever someone’s in a slump, there’s always someone else to pick it up,” said Lavoie.