STANDISH  — The seniors on Dirigo’s baseball team collected their eighth Western Maine championship plaque with Tuesday’s win over Telstar.

That’s a lot of hardware. Between baseball (two), basketball (four), football (one) and wrestling (one), the Cougars have averaged two regional titles per year over the course of their four-year high school careers.

More than anything, they would like to increase their earned state title average. A win Saturday against Calais (4 p.m., St. Joseph’s College) would give them four in four years and their second baseball championship in three years.

“We’ve just been chasing that feeling our whole high school career,” said senior catcher Jake Dowland, who has been part of the chase in baseball, football and wrestling. “This is my last time to chase it. To go down with four state championships would mean more than anything.”

Football won in 2009. Baseball in 2010. After losing three consecutive state title games, the basketball team finally got the monkey off its back three months ago.

Senior pitcher Ben Holmes, the Cougars’ ace who will get the start on Saturday, played on all three of those teams. And yet a second state baseball title would, in his eyes, trump them all.

“I want this more than any other,” Holmes said.

Dirigo hasn’t lost since its season opener against St. Dom’s. Its 18-game winning streak includes bookend regular season one-run wins over Spruce Mountain and Telstar, a 13-2 blowout over Old Orchard Beach in the quarterfinals, a 3-0 shutout of Hall-Dale in the semifinals and St. Germain’s 3-hit gem in the 4-1 regional final win over Telstar on Tuesday.

The Cougars haven’t been flawless during that run, but they’ve been around enough to know they don’t have to be. That in itself may be the biggest advantage their experience gives them. Something may, and likely will, go wrong at some point. Just don’t compound any mistakes by allowing them to shake their confidence.

“That’s got to be the mindset that you go into every game with, just knowing that you’re going to win,” senior pitcher/ first baseman Cody St. Germain said. “Everyone on our team has that. I wasn’t nervous at all (on Tuesday). I think some of our coaches were.”

“I did not sleep a wink,” head coach Ryan Palmer confessed. “I got to the school at 9 a.m. and I was pacing the hallways.”

For all the Cougars’ big-game experience, they may have met their match, at least on the diamond, in Calais. The Blue Devils (18-1) won their third Eastern Maine title in a row on Tuesday with their 4-0 victory over Dexter. Starter Adam Geel pitched in all three, recorded shutouts in the last two and is eligible to take the hill on Saturday.

Calais is still seeking its first state title since 1976. It lost to Dirigo, 4-2, in 2010, and St. Dom’s, 5-4, last year.

So what will it take for the Cougars to beat an opponent that could be just as calm as they are when the heat is on Saturday? Who better to ask than the ones who have been there so many times before?

“We need no errors like we did (on Tuesday) again,” Holmes said. “And we need to get the bats working.”

If they can do that, they will once again capture the feeling Dowland, Holmes, St Germain and company know more than most.

“Basketball is the best feeling that I’ve ever had,” said St. Germain, who was the tournament MVP during that title run. “I’m hoping it can be just the same on Saturday.”