AUBURN – It may not be pretty, but if St. Dom’s season develops like Friday night’s Western Maine Conference tilt with Old Orchard Beach did, the Saints will be playing well into February.

St. Dom’s diversified its offense and clamped down on defense to pick up its second win of the season over OOB, 51-47, at Callahan Family Gymnasium.

The Saints have been looking to spread the wealth on offense after sharp-shooting guard Justin Richardson scored half of the team’s points in their last two games. It looked like the junior guard might have to carry the load again after a 13-point second quarter helped the Saints to a 28-23 halftime lead.

Richardson (14 points) went cold in the second half (0-for-7), but senior forward Justin Fongemie filled the void, scoring 13 of his game-high 20 points.

“It was a test of our character tonight,” said St. Dom’s coach Dan DeBruin. “We’re gonna play better games than that and lose. The senior leadership came out in Justin Fongemie and Josh Hixon (nine points, nine rebounds). I was very happy with the way they stepped up when they made the adjustments towards Justin Richardson.”

Fongemie and Hixon made the key plays down the stretch as the Saints (4-3) emerged from a tie game with five minutes to play. Fongemie’s drive and bucket put them up for good with 4:44 left. Andrew Gilbert added a layup, his only points of the game, with three-plus minutes left to make it a five-point game.

After the Seagulls trimmed the deficit to three, Hixon stuck a jumper to make it a five-point game again with 2:19 left, then added a key steal in the waning moments to preserve the victory.

The Saints held the Seagulls (2-7) to just 30 percent shooting in the second half, disrupting their offense by clogging the passing lanes and helping out on their guards’ dribble penetration.

“They play a four-guard set with a lot of pass-and-cut, pass-and-cut and look to penetrate,” DeBruin said. “I thought our big guys did a great job defensively on their perimeter players, guys like Josh Hixon and Andy Allen and Billy Colasante and Jamie Donahue were matched up with guys much smaller and quicker than them.”

Aaron Fleury was the only Seagull to reach double figures with 10 points.