AUBURN — The look on Trevar Haefele’s face says it all.

Before he can even be asked about his St. Dom’s boys’ soccer team facing North Yarmouth Academy in Wednesday’s Western C final, a smile starts forming on his face.

“They’re our old rivals,” said the Haefele, a senior Saints midfielder. “It’s always the funnest game of the year to play them.”

The Saints and Panthers have butted heads two, quite often three, times each fall. They were two Western Maine Conference rivals that cranked up the intensity and the stakes each time they played. So when St. Dom’s learned that NYA had edged Georges Valley Saturday and would be in Auburn on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. for the regional title showdown, it was a perfect pairing. One of the cons in St. Dom’s move to the Mountain Valley Conference was losing the two regular season showdowns with the Panthers each fall. Now they get to reunite with a title at stake.

“We’re looking forward to playing them,” said St. Dom’s coach Matt Erickson. “We haven’t played them this year. We love playing NYA because it’s a rivalry. Coming into the new league, we haven’t really established a new rivalry, yet. NYA, in my mind, is still a rival, and our boys view it that way, too.”

The Western C title has typically gone through either NYA or St. Dom’s. In the last 11 years, either the Panthers or the Saints have won the regional crown seven times. St. Dom’s last won the state championship in 2007 while NYA last won it in 2005. With so many intense games between them, the NYA-St. Dom’s playoff matchup has become annual tradition that often settles supremacy in Western C.

“They’re consistently a good team year round,” said Kurt Johnson, a St. Dom’s junior midfielder. “We know that if we play our game and come in with confidence and execute our game plan that we should be able to win the game.”

This year’s matchup may be a little different than in year’s past. The Saints (16-0) boast a veteran club with 10 seniors. St. Dom’s scored 79 goals in the regular season while dominating most foes. The Saints allowed just six goals against while posting nine shutouts. They’ve added to those numbers with a 1-0 win over Livermore Falls and a 3-0 victory over Wiscasset.

The Panthers (8-6-1) are a fairly young club that scored just 22 goals in the regular season and allowed 21. Only two seniors, Jay Garnett and Henry Sterling, were returning veteran players. The only other returning players that saw ample time last year was junior Mohamed Dahia and sophomore Matt Michaud. Martyn Keen, the Panthers first-year coach, has the club back on track after going 4-9-2 and losing in the prelims last fall. Keen, who coached at Deering for 10 years and also coached the Seacoast United club, has led his club to a pair of tough playoff wins already. NYA edged second-ranked Dirigo 1-0 and beat Georges Valley 3-2 in overtime.

The challenge may be even steeper for the Panthers. Keen will be without his starting goalie because of an illness that came after the win Saturday. His only other keeper is a JV player that Keen is prepping for today’s game. Keen has already worked with nine of the state’s 11 keepers that have gone on to play at the Division I level and is currently working with St. Dom’s keeper Nick Brigham.

The Saints were able to scout the Panthers against Waynflete in the regular season. After controlling play in the MVC championship win over Dirigo and beating Livermore Falls and Wiscasset, the Saints are playing their best ball right now.

“I don’t think there’s any one thing we need to do differently,” said Erickson. “These are high school boys. They need to be mentally prepared. If the team is mentally prepared to play a game, they’ll do well. They don’t always come mentally prepared.”

After losing in the semifinals last year to Waynflete, in a game in which the Saints lost their composure and struggled to finish, St. Dom’s is focused and ready for the next step.

“We’ve just got to keep playing hard and elevating ourselves,” said Haefele. “Our goal all year is to win states. So we’ve just got to keep working toward that.”