AUBURN — Cheverus/Yarmouth looks ready for another state championship run.

The defending Class B state champions won the St. Dom’s Christmas Classic on Saturday with a 3-2 victory over Thornton Academy, one of the favorites in Class A.

“It’s certainly nice to win the tournament,” Cheverus/Yarmouth coach David St. Pierre said. “St. Dom’s was nice enough to give us a chance to participate in the championship game, which was fortunate for us. We’ll take it. It’s a nice thing, but it’s not something that’s going to define our season in terms of what we’re trying to achieve. We’ve still got a long way to go.”

Cheverus/Yarmouth could only play in the tournament on Thursday and Saturday because of a lack of exhibition dates. St. Dom’s gave up its spot in the championship game, with the Saints already scheduled to play Thornton in a regular-season game on Monday.

Junior defenseman Colby Carnes of Cheverus/Yarmouth said he and his teammates treated Saturday like a do-or-die playoff game because being in that mindset will only help them going forward.

“Yeah, it gives a little bit of a more competitive attitude around the team and everything,” Carnes said. “So it just gets us more mentally prepared for those tight games and coming through with it, tight leads and stuff.”

Thornton Academy and Cheverus/Yarmouth don’t meet in the regular season, and Golden Trojans coach Jamie Gagnon said it was good to see a high-quality Class B team to help them prepare for the rest of their season.

The Golden Trojans also saw a top team in Class B North on Friday when they defeated the John Bapst co-op, 4-3 in overtime.

“That’s what we came up here for,” Gagnon said. “So hopefully, we got enough in that we continue along the process now and get ready to get back to the rest of our schedule.”

USING DEFENSEMAN TO CREATE OFFENSE

Cheverus/Yarmouth scored its first two goals on shots from the point.

Griffin Zinman tied the game late in the opening period with a shot that beat Thornton goalie Dalton Cole (15 saves) cleanly. It was Zinman’s second attempt in a short sequence. He misfired on his first shot.

“I would say that the missed shot, (I) didn’t have my head up,” Zinman said. “I shot it into the other player. And during my goal, there’s this clear lane. I saw it, I shot it, and it went in.

Carnes gave Cheverus/Yarmouth a 2-1 lead late in the second period when his shot deflected off a Thornton player into the net.

Carnes said the defensive group takes pride in providing offense, especially with the graduation of Ian O’Connor and David Swift from last year’s team.

“Yeah, I’d say we are,” Carnes said. “We had a couple of defensemen last year who really ran the offense for our team, and we’re trying to step up and fill those roles.”

Two of the Stags top three point-leaders in regular-season games are defensemen (Carnes and Owen Cheever).

Forward Hakon Yeo scored early in the third period when he put home a rebound after Quinn McCoy’s wraparound attempt, giving Cheverus/Yarmouth a 3-1 advantage.

St. Pierre said McCoy draws a lot of attention from opponents.

“Yeah, we’ve been talking to the boys about making sure that they’re using their net drive, getting pucks to the net, and good things happen instead of trying to do a little too much fancy stuff because they come across the line,” St. Pierre said. “We wanted to be attacking with speed, and Quinn did a fantastic job doing that.”

Thornton opened the scoring 11 minutes into the game when Jake Skillings tapped home a loose puck near the crease. Brady Pecora recorded the lone assist.

Cam Cyr kept the Golden Trojans in striking distance when his wrist shot deflected off the glove of goalie Brayden Fitch (27 saves) and into the net with under five minutes remaining to make it 3-2.

“I think there’s a bunch of boxes you have to check along the way, right? You’ve got to play from behind, you’ve got to play from ahead, you’ve got to play in tight games, you’ve got to play blowouts and find a way to be competitive, and certainly the environment helps,” Gagnon said.