AUBURN — Camden Hills squashed any thought St. Dom’s had that it could cruise from start to finish in its Eastern Class B boys’ lacrosse game about three minutes into the contest, and made life difficult for the Saints throughout the first quarter.

The Saints squelched the Windjammers’ hopes of a major upset with a stunningly efficient second quarter, rattling off seven unanswered goals before the break, and glided thereafter to a 16-3 victory.

“I don’t know why, we were doing all the right things, we were getting down to the point where we needed to finish, and sometimes, we have problems with that, especially early on,” St. Dom’s coach Dave Haefele said. “Once we settled down, we were fine.”

Troy Haefele led the Saints’ attack Wednesday with a five-goal, nine-assist performance, factoring in on 14 of the Saints’ 16 tallies. Despite those statistics, coach Haefele, Troy’s father, believes the Saints are more multidimensional this season than they were a year ago.

“(Troy) moves so well off the ball that he’ll still get the ball, still get those assists, but everybody else usually comes around to help out,” Dave Haefele said. “Last year, we had one guy going one-on-one. This year we have five or six guys who can all do that.”

Chris Finlay, Anthony Fagone and Will Desmarais each tacked on three goals in the winning cause, while Grant Carrier and Nick Hatfield had one each.

“In the couple tougher games we’ve had, it’s come around that two or three other guys are stepping up and scoring a lot, too,” Haefele said. “They’ve responded well, and they’re capable of that.”

Troy Haefele helped St. Dom’s put the Windjammers back on their heels early, with a goal 12 seconds into the game. He added another 1:16 later, but Camden Hills fought back. Nick Linscott buried his team’s first shot on goal, a bouncer, past St. Dom’s keeper Cody Rodrigue, at 2:37 to cut the Saints’ lead in half.

Finlay struck for two more quick ones to stretch the home team’s lead to 4-1, only to have Max Mercier add one more before the end of the first quarter for Camden Hills, drawing the visitors to within two.

In the second, the Saints exploded. Carrier, Haefele and Fagone netted three quick one to run the score to 7-2, and Haefele, Demarais and Hatfield combined for four more in the next four minutes to put the game away.

In addition to lighting up the scoreboard, the Saints started working on some things in the second half that will be useful as they advance to play nemesis North Yarmouth Academy in an Eastern B semifinal Saturday.

“We worked on all different things we’ve been working on in practice, we learned a lot,” Haefele said. “We believe we’re much better prepared now than we were a year ago.”

The Saints’ game Saturday against the Panthers is scheduled for 1 p.m.