BETHEL — It’s hard to be perfectionists when your record is, well, perfect.

Dirigo didn’t need much more motivation than the memory of a sputtering start against Telstar six weeks ago to put itself in blow-their-doors-off mode Monday night.

“We had a slow first quarter last time, and the same thing happened the second time we played Mountain Valley,” Dirigo’s Caleb Turner said. “We just wanted to make a statement from the start tonight.”

Sixteen unanswered points in a span of just over three minutes late in the first quarter and early in the second fulfilled that goal and then some in Dirigo’s 74-34 romp.

That 40-point margin is the Cougars’ average game-ending cushion this season, and it nearly matched the 69-25 disparity in Dixfield on Dec. 16.

Dirigo (15-0) already has clinched the No. 1 seed in the Western Class C tournament, a party the Cougars hope to shut down for the fourth consecutive year.

Games against Mt. Abram, Mountain Valley and Spruce Mountain stand in the way of the first undefeated regular season in school history.

“We’re exactly where we want to be right now,” said Josh Turbide, another of the Cougars’ four senior starters.

Cody St. Germain led Dirigo with 24 points and eight rebounds. Turner had 12 points, including back-to-back fastbreak buckets off his own steals late in the first quarter.

Ben Holmes (nine points), Turbide (eight) and T.J. Frost (seven) combined for four 3-pointers. Frost, Holmes and Turbide each dished out six assists.

“We’re a big passing team. No one’s selfish. Everyone’s looking for the open man,” Turbide said. “All that matters is we put the points on the board.”

Telstar (7-8) couldn’t match that composure against Dirigo’s pressure, committing 17 first-half turnovers and 23 overall.

And while Dirigo went 9-for-13 from the field in the opening period, Telstar started its descent to 6-for-31 in the half.

“We’re scared of them. We’re intimidated by them, and no reason to be,” Telstar coach Mark Thurlow said. “When they get running like that, they’re hard to stop. They’re playing good basketball right now.”

Danny Whitney led Telstar with nine points. Drew Wilson and Corey Howard added six apiece.

Thurlow benched two starters during the second half, one for language and another after an intentional foul.

“You’ve got to play with your head once in a while, so I took them out and I don’t worry about what the score is,” Thurlow said. “They aren’t happy with me right now, but I don’t care. They’ve got to cut it out.”

Telstar still should make the Western Class C tournament field as somewhere between a No. 7 and No. 10 seed.

Falling into the eight-nine preliminary bracket could lead to a quarterfinal clash with Dirigo, which is a fate any right-thinking Class C team wants to avoid.

Dirigo led 24-5 after one quarter. Even after a cold-shooting second period, it was 37-14.

“The first couple of minutes it was 7-5, and then it was a 17-0 run where we played good pressure defense and did a lot of good things,” Dirigo coach Travis Magnusson said. “We’re still making turnovers at times. We limited that tonight, and we’re making some great passes.”

The Cougars gave it away only four times in the first half.

Eleven players were in the Dirigo scoring column by the end of the night.

“We’re a very deep team, a team with a lot of chemistry, and we flow well together,” Turner said. “We couldn’t be sitting much prettier right now.”

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