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ORONO — Thirty minutes after the last out, as the sun set on their baseball team’s dynasty, St. Dominic Academy students and alumni gathered beneath the Mahaney Diamond scoreboard.

One girl, a current student, had tears in her eyes; another woman, an elderly alum, was fighting to hold them back. Even the St. Dom’s baseball team’s celebration after the final out of their 9-6 win Saturday over Bangor Christian in the Class D state final had been rather constrained as far as championship celebrations go.

“It’s a great feeling, but it’s hard because you don’t know what’s next,” said junior Riley Daigle, who played his final game for St. Dom’s because of the school’s closure after 84 years. “We’re really happy, but it’s hard not for us to be sad at the same time.

Yes, it’s a bittersweet feeling for the community of the Auburn school that’s had an iconic history in Maine high school athletics. Yet knowing their time together was done regardless of how this season ended, there was only way St. Dom’s players were determined to go out — as state champions.

St. Dom’s ran out to a 9-1 lead at the University of Maine’s Mahaney Diamond and withstood a late Bangor Christian rally. The win secured a fourth consecutive state title for the Saints, who close out the program’s history with nine total championships, all in the last 20 years.

“We wanted to play a great game for our last one and do this one last thing for the school, and we did,” said St. Dom’s freshman pitcher Logan LeClair. “We played a great game; we got out to a lead early, and we kept building it.”

Daigle had a single, a double and an RBI for St. Dom’s, which also got two singles and an RBI from Kessel Lynn and two-run singles from LeClair and Nolan Cavers. LeClair got the win on the mound, striking out six in 5 2/3 innings.

St. Dom’s (14-6) opened with a pair of runs in the top of the first inning, as a bloop single by Cavers scored Curtis Wheeler and Daigle.

Bangor Christian (18-2) clawed a run back in the bottom half, as two errors allowed Jon Benjamin to cross the plate.

St. Dom’s then used two more Bangor Christian errors and a hard-hit single by LeClair to plate three runs in the third inning. The Saints scored three more runs in the fourth, as three hits, including a Daigle double, and two more errors gave St. Dom’s an 8-1 lead.

“I felt like, if we did what we knew we could do and played St. Dom’s baseball, we could win this game, and we showed that early,” St. Dom’s coach Bob Blackman said. “We were comfortable, and we came out confident. We came in here playing well, and we had both of our pitchers back, and they couldn’t use (star pitcher Cole) Payne.”

After Lynn knocked in LeClair to make it 9-1 in the fifth inning, Bangor Christian rallied in the sixth, plating five runs in a inning highlighted by Drake Nash’s bases-loaded triple. Reliever Ben Dumais got the last two outs of the inning before pitching around a one-out walk in the seventh to seal the win.

Five or six weeks ago, it didn’t look like a storybook season was in the cards, as the Saints went 2-6 over their first eight games. But the closer it came to the end of their time together, the better the Saints played, and they closed out the season on a 12-game winning streak.

“I did not (think we’d be where we are now at that point), but I knew once we started getting into a groove and playing together as a team that we had a chance,” LeClair said. “It’s been hard ever since (they announced) the closure, but we just keep working for this, and we’re very happy that we won.”

Blaze Morris (3 1/3 innings pitched) took the loss for Bangor Christian, whose only loss entering Saturday had been a 2-1 defeat to Machias on May 16.

Now comes the hard reality for St. Dom’s, which would have been in an excellent position to extend their title streak next year, since Wheeler was the only senior who got regular playing time. Sadly, they won’t get that chance — but as Blackman pointed out, that knowledge helped drive this team to be successful.

“This group was put in a tough situation, and they had a goal in mind and saw it through,” Blackman said. “It’s hard because we just won our ninth championship, and there’s something stopping us from truly enjoying it. Still, I’m happy for these guys; they proved a point, and you can’t take that away from them.”