AUBURN — Hoping to get its offense clicking for the stretch drive, St. Dom’s went into attack mode for Wednesday’s Mountain Valley Conference tilt with Telstar.

The Saints’ aggressiveness stunned Telstar and turned a much-anticipated showdown between two of the top three teams in the Western C Heals into an 11-1 route that ended after four-and-a-half innings due to the 10-run mercy rule.

Jimmy Theriault smashed a bases-clearing triple and battled through some control problems to limit the Rebels to an unearned run and three hits. Zak Johnson, Aaron Schmitz and Caleb Dostie added to the Saint’s 11-hit barrage with two hits apiece.

“Coach (Bob Blackman) really pressed it on us this week in practice, to swing and take the ball where it’s pitched,” Theriault said.

“We’ve been struggling lately with hitting so he told us to hit it where it’s pitched and hit the gaps real hard,” said Dostie, a sophomore second baseman who added a walk an RBI and a run scored from the No. 9 spot in the order.

The Saints (9-3) jumped on Telstar starter Kyle Peterson for six runs in the first inning. They sent nine men to the plate and cracked seven hits, all singles.

Two of those hits were hard-hit line drives to the outfield that momentarily froze the left and right fielders and eventually tipped off their gloves as they retreated. The second came off the bat of Drew Gosselin with the bases loaded and put the Saints up 3-0.

“We worked on being aggressive early in the count,” Blackman said. “We’ve stranded way too many base runners, and we do it because we go deep in the count. I want them looking in a spot and if it’s there, hit it.”

After one out, Matt Roy lined a run-scoring single up the middle and Dostie flared an RBI single over third base. Peterson then hit Zak Johnson with the bases loaded to send in the sixth run and end his day on the mound.

“Never in four years have I seen Kyle like that,” Telstar coach Bob Remington said. “And it’s like, what do you do? Next thing you know, it’s 6-0. He had nothing. Everything was belt high.”

The Rebels (7-2), who went into the game having won seven in a row, seemed shell-shocked after witnessing one of their top pitchers get hit so hard. They ran into a pair of outs on the bases, including a pickoff at second base.

Theriault made it 9-0 by crushing a 2-2 pitch from reliever Corey Howard that short-hopped the fence next to the 416 sign in left-center.

“I wasn’t looking to hit it deep or anything. I had two strikes on me so I was just looking to make good contact,” Theriault said. “I guess I did.”

Theriault (5 IP, 7 K) escaped trouble in the first after issuing his only two walks of the game. After a 1-2-3 second, he surrendered a pair of singles in the third but picked Casey Thornton off second to help end that threat.

Telstar punched an unearned run across in the fourth on Kurt Morgan’s sacrifice fly, but Theriault struck out two in the final frame to end it.

“I was struggling for a while,” Theriault said. “The last inning, I made some tweaks and it ended up working well for me. I wish I did it earlier.”