AUBURN — Beating the heat on Wednesday was one thing, but both St. Dom’s and Mountain Valley were tested by another typical early-season roadblock — early-season jitters.

The Falcons overcame theirs much more quickly than the Saints, and after a scoreless first half, Nicole Burgess started a three-goal outburst to help lift the visitors to a 3-0 season-opening Mountain Valley Conference win.

Emily Gallant made eight saves — just two in the second half — to earn her first shutout of the season.

“We were able to drive the ball more (in the second half),” Burgess said.

“The young kids that popped up to play for the first time, remember we have two new players on that front line, once they started playing together, they got stronger,” Mountain Valley coach Melissa Forbes said.”

From the back end, once the Falcons started to move the ball better, Gallant had a much easier time after a first half during which she had to make a couple of key saves to ensure her team didn’t fall behind by a goal or two.

“We played harder in the second half, it felt like the team played like it really wanted to win,” Gallant said.

The Saints, meanwhile, spent the game trying to break in even more new players after basically beginning anew last season.

“We’re still very young, and I’m still putting people in different positions,” St. Dom’s coach Brian Kay said. “We’re trying to find that balance, and once you get a couple of goals down, it’s difficult to get that back.”

Neither team had the true advantage in the first half. The teams battled back and forth, with each forcing the opposing keeper to make six saves in the first 30 minutes, a half that was stopped only twice — once for a Saints timeout and once for an officials’ timeout for a water break due to the heat.

In the second half, though, Burgess got things started, taking advantage of an inopportune clear by a St. Dom’s (0-1) defender, who fired the ball from her own endline to the right of the cage right back to the middle of the slot. Burgess found the ball and rattled the cage to put the Falcons up by one with 20:31 to play.

Chelsea Bordeau added another for Mountain Valley (1-0) on another goalmouth scramble 7:10 later past a diving Jenna Fongemie (16 saves).

Makenzie Gallant capped the scoring with 5:33 to play in the game.