AUBURN – Matt Barlion is hobbled, which is par for the course if you’re a member of the St. Dominic Regional High School boys’ soccer team this fall. A strained hip flexor limits Barlion to half-speed and half-time.

As it turned out, that was plenty of time Monday afternoon for Barlion to get behind the Waynflete School defense and shoot the Saints to another Western Maine Conference victory. And a little help from big brother didn’t hurt.

Greg Barlion found a seam among the Flyers in the Saints’ defensive zone early in the second half. He threaded the needle to Matt, whose goal with 31 minutes remaining snapped a scoreless tie and sent St. Dom’s to a 2-0 triumph.

Thankfully for the Saints, Matt Barlion’s aches and pains actually plagued him before the team convened for preseason workouts. That means ice and intermittent rest allow him to perform at least as a reasonable facsimile of himself at this stage of the healing process.

That isn’t the case elsewhere in an autumn when it seems every game and practice dictate a new trip to the emergency room. St. Dom’s has watched both its goalkeeper and sweeper miss time with injuries. Others are limping but soldiering on. Even the Saints’ scorekeeper is currently on crutches.

“We play to the level of the opposition. Today, we were very, very flat,” St. Dom’s coach Lee Hixon. “The injuries have hurt us this year. It’s hard to try to play games at 100 percent when you’re only practicing at 50 percent.”

Hidden among the bumps and bruises is a shimmering silver lining. St. Dom’s (3-1-2) has already tied North Yarmouth Academy twice and split with Traip Academy, arguably the two toughest WMC Class C opponents the Saints will encounter.

On top of that, the Saints are miles ahead of last season, when they started 1-7-1 before rallying all the way to an appearance in the regional championship.

The Barlion brothers weren’t buying that, though.

“We played terrible,” said Matt.

“Yeah, it was horrible,” echoed Greg. “We just didn’t come out with any intensity. We’ve played so many big games right at the opening of the season.”

Matt and Greg’s collaboration turned the tide of a game in which Waynflete (1-3) matched St. Dom’s run for run, shot for shot and save for save throughout the first half.

Both teams uncorked 10 shots on goal in the opening stanza. Austin Fuller, playing with a cast over his broken left thumb, made eight of his 10 saves prior to intermission for St. Dom’s.

“That kind of tells you how we were playing,” Hixon said. “They had three or four good shots there. I lost count of how many headers Andy Allen had for us that just missed..”

Aaron Gillespie made 11 saves for Waynflete, but he had little more than puncher’s chance after Matt Barlion marked the spot for Greg and took possession of a textbook through-ball within 25 yards of the Flyers’ cage.

“I couldn’t run very fast,” said Matt. “He put it right where it needed to be.”

John Mulderis added the insurance goal with 10 minutes remaining on a feed from Sheldon Roy.

Roy, Joe Theriault, Dan Ouellette and T.J. Ustach headlined a defensive effort that limited Waynflete to six shots against Fuller in the second half. Daniel Mitchell had the best opportunity to tie the game with 20 minutes left, but his weighty boot from close range drifted high and harmlessly over Fuller’s head and above the crossbar.

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