St. Dominic’s Charli Apodaca lays up a shot against Forest Hills during the Saints' 54-49 win in a Class D South semifinal on Thursday in Augusta. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

AUGUSTA — St. Dominic Academy didn’t want to wait for the game to start.

Since the Class D South girls basketball semifinal between the Saints and Forest Hills was the first game of the morning session Thursday at the Augusta Civic Center, the national anthem was supposed to be played. There were technical difficulties, though, and it didn’t play over the speakers.

A minute went by before the Saints, led by Chloe and Piper Croteau, decided to belt the anthem out themselves, and were soon joined by their teammates and the crowd.

Once the game began, the third-seeded Saints started strong and held off the Tigers, 54-49, to reach the regional final. They will face No. 1 Valley (20-0) at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Civic Center.

“The twins started, they were like, let’s just sing it,” St. Dom’s senior Charli Apodaca said. “And then they just started singing. We all just joined in.”

How did St. Dom’s win?

• The Saints (15-5) jumped out to a 9-1 lead in the first quarter and led 19-6 after eight minutes.

• Second-seeded Forest Hills (14-6) stormed back in the second quarter. Morgan Petrucci was the only player to score in the first quarter for the Tigers, but her teammates contributed in the second. Five players scored, and Forest Hills cut the lead to 27-24.

• St. Dom’s, though, made another big run in the third quarter, led by Kara Farrington. The eighth-grader scored the first 11 points to give the Saints a 38-24 lead. Then the Tigers went on a mini-run late in the quarter when fouls started to pile up for the Saints.

“It was really good because I knew we had to get a score, and I knew if I scored, then the rest of the team would score,” Farrington said. “Then Charli went and scored a few times, so that really got us in the lead.”

• Petrucci helped the Tigers pull within two early in the fourth quarter by scoring six of Forest Hills’ first 10 points. But Apodaca scored 10 points for St. Dom’s in the fourth, and Forest Hills couldn’t take advantage of the Saints’ foul trouble.

They said it

• “Yeah, I didn’t want the fourth quarter to be my last eight minutes of basketball. So, I think that was a big motivation, and I know my team didn’t want to be done. So we just really want to keep going and see how far we can end up.” — Charli Apodaca

• “The first time we played in the tournament this week, we came out very slow. And we’ve really harped on the last two days in practice of really coming out fast. And they came out quick. And that’s great. It’s all you can ask from the team.” — St. Dom’s coach Randy Parenteau

• “I knew they were in foul trouble right off. I kept telling them, you’ve got to drive, you’ve got to take it to them because they were in foul trouble in the first quarter. They had two girls with three, or one girl with three and one girl with two. So we were trying to draw fouls. — Forest Hills coach Jessica Yu

Statistical leaders

• St. Dom’s: Charli Apodaca (22 points), Kara Farrington (21 points)

• Forest Hills: Morgan Petrucci (20 points), Janessa Moffit (eight points), Addison Chaisson (eight points)