It’s been nearly 10 months since the St. Dominic Academy baseball team played its final game. The high school that spawned a dynasty? Shuttered. The players who won a fourth straight state title last June? Scattered.

There’s no St. Dom’s to defend the Class D crown this year after the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland announced in March 2025 that the Auburn school would close at the end of that school year. The diocese cited millions in operating losses and shrinking enrollment.

“It was tough,” said Riley Daigle, a St. Dom’s center fielder last season. “We were all very sad when it happened.”

There’s a hole in Maine high school sports without St. Dominic Academy. The Saints were synonymous with hockey, winning 26 boys hockey and three girls hockey state titles. The school won the aforementioned Class D baseball championship last year, as well as the Class D boys basketball title.

Still, while the school is no more, its former students are impacting the Maine high school sports landscape. At least 45 former St. Dom’s students are competing for Lewiston, Edward Little, Leavitt, Cheverus, Lisbon and other schools.

From the 2025 state championship baseball team, seniors Daigle, Brady Blash and Ben Dumais are at Cheverus, sophomores Jacoby Apodaca, Logan LeClair and Kalvin Lovering are at Monmouth Academy, and coach Bob Blackman is now at the helm at Gray-New Gloucester — just to name a few. 

“Going from a private-school background, where that’s the only high school program I’ve ever coached, to a public school, it’s different, no question about it,” Blackman said. “After 22 years at St. Dom’s, I pretty much had my way of doing things. It was very easy, and everything fell into place. Now, it’s this whole learning experience as you get used to something new.”

Two ex-St. Dom’s field hockey players, juniors Lily Bonney and Ava Martin, were key parts of Cheverus’ Class A championship team last fall. Martin scored several key goals and was a stalwart at center midfield, a position that Cheverus coach Andrea Musante said doesn’t get the glory it deserves.

“I can’t imagine having my school close in the middle of high school and having to scramble like they did to find a new school and a new program,” Musante said. “I was impressed with how they managed the transition. I’m sure it was hard for them, but they came in and fit right in.”

Cheverus/Yarmouth boys hockey reached the Class A final with an infusion of five St. Dom’s transfers, including Dumais, a finalist for the Travis Roy Award as the state’s top senior Class A player. Cheverus boys basketball (Class A South runner-up), Monmouth boys basketball (Class D champion) and the Edward Little girls hockey co-op (North runner-up) also benefited from St. Dom’s transfers.

Some teams feature a large number of former Saints. Aside from Cheverus/Yarmouth boys hockey, the Lewiston softball team has six former Saints on its roster: sisters Madeline and Julia Andrews, twins Chloe and Piper Croteau, and Leah Shannon and Olivia Tapley.

“At St. Dom’s, I caught for Madeline, and it’s the same thing here,” Piper Croteau said. “I think you have a lot of that continuing chemistry because we’ve played with each other since middle school up until high school, and we all know each other’s strengths and how each person plays.”

The St. Dom’s baseball players who went to Monmouth also found a good fit. The schools are similar in enrollment — Monmouth has 188 students this year to St. Dom’s 127 last year — and like the Saints in Class D, the Mustangs won the state title last year in Class C.

“It’s very bittersweet (not to defend the title with St. Dom’s), definitely, but I’m happy to be here and to be on another winning team,” said Logan LeClair. “It’s great to be (on another team that just won a state title). The reason I’m here is to win, and that’s the ultimate goal. … They have guys who know how to win here.”

Playing sports was a rite of passage at St. Dom’s. David Enos, who was the school’s athletic director at the time of its closing after spending years as its athletic trainer, said the athletic participation rate in 2024-25 was a remarkable 93%. 

Hailing from a school that usually had between 120-140 students, those athletes remain tight-knit. Dumais said the school’s former athletes keep tabs on one another via a big group chat, and there’s also a Facebook page, SAINTS SIGHTING, that serves a similar function.

“We always try to check in on each other and just see how we’re all doing,” Dumais said. “It’s been tough, especially for our grade — we’ve really been together for our whole lives — but since we’ve been able to all keep in touch, I think that’s made it a lot easier for us.”

Transitioning to bigger schools has taken some time for the former Saints. Lewiston (1,655 students) and Edward Little (1,136) might as well be college campuses compared to St. Dom’s, and even Leavitt (552), Cheverus (388) and Lisbon (362) are significantly larger.

Ex-St. Dom’s students have had differing experiences making those adjustments. Blash said Cheverus still has the feel of a small school, which has made fitting in easy. Chloe Croteau said going from St. Dom’s to Lewiston was a culture shock, but one that’s given her new perspective. 

“You see all different kinds of people and all different kinds of ethnicities and cultures here, so it kind of just helped me to see a lot more of what the world is like,” Croteau said. “I’ve really learned a lot here. … It’s a lot different, but I’ve adapted, and I like it.”

There are always worries about fit when teams take on new players from other schools. Take hockey, for example, where St. Dom’s shared a strong rivalry with Lewiston over the years. Can old rivals get along? How will players fit into a new team?

“I really don’t think it could have gone much better,” said Lewiston girls co-coach Sarah Pomerleau, who noted that Lewiston’s former St. Dom’s players wear their old hockey pants with the school’s “SD” logo on it. “The players have been really welcoming (to the St. Dom’s girls), and they have a great relationship with each other. We really haven’t seen any drama.”

Going from St. Dom’s to Lewiston, Edward Little or Cheverus also means playing against large schools such as Bangor, Brunswick, Scarborough and South Portland — a major step up in competition (except for hockey).

That hasn’t made the ex-Saints any less impactful. Blackman and Enos said seeing their former St. Dom’s athletes earning significant time on large-school contenders has been no surprise, nor was it unexpected that some of those players played a role in Cheverus adding another field hockey title.

“Even though they came in from another class, they came in and had a huge part in an exciting year for us,” Musante said. “If you can play, you can play, and it doesn’t matter what class you’re in or where you’re coming from.”