AUBURN — President George W. Bush was just past the halfway point of his first term.

Your internet connection, if you had one, probably was dial-up. Your wireless phone, if you knew such a luxury, likely was “smart” enough to make calls, but only after you flipped it open.

Long before discussions about their quarterback’s preferences for air pressure, the New England Patriots owned one Lombardi Trophy. The Curse of the Bambino was still a thing, real enough to inspire a book.

Saint Dominic Academy was known as St. Dominic Regional High School, and future students Ray Mosca, Caleb Labrie, Mike Bryant, Mitch Lorenz, Ryan Harvey and Matt Keaney were finishing kindergarten.

The year was 2003. Under the guidance of rookie coach Bob Blackman, St. Dom’s lost to Jay High School (another blast from the past) in the Class C West baseball championship game.

With the exception of 2012, St. Dom’s has made it back to the final at Saint Joseph’s College in Standish every June. The run continues at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, when the Saints face Winthrop.

“I tell the kids if we can get to Standish every year, we’ve had a good year,” Blackman said. “Once you get there, it isn’t always going to fall for you, and it hasn’t. We’ve been to six state championships. We’ve been fortunate enough to win four. That being said, we lost half of our Western Maine finals. If you get that far, it’s two good teams.”

St. Dom’s won the Class C state title in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011. The Saints also reached the final in 2004 and 2006.

It isn’t a streak in the conventional sense, but it has put St. Dom’s into a category of its own. Portland, Bangor, Cape Elizabeth, Southern Aroostook and North Yarmouth Academy are among the programs to achieve clockwork consistency in decades past — winning 6 of 7 regional titles, or 8 of 10 — but the Saints are the new standard-bearer.

“I live in Augusta, but I still knew about the tradition at St. Dom’s, and that was one of the reasons I was excited about coming here,” Mosca said.

Only a month ago, it seemed certain that this would be the rare St. Dom’s senior class never to set foot on the diamond in a state final.

With Bryant out of the lineup due to a hamstring injury, the Saints dropped three consecutive games for the first time in Blackman’s tenure. St. Dom’s dropped to 3-4 and needed a road win over then-No. 1 Monmouth just to get back to .500 and solidify a playoff berth.

Mired deep in the field as the eighth seed, St. Dom’s beat Madison 3-1 in the preliminary round before stunning No. 1 Dirigo 5-2 in the quarterfinals. The Saints shut out No. 5 Maranacook 3-0 in the semis.

“It’s made playoffs a lot more interesting. Especially beating Dirigo. That was probably our biggest rivals. That just is huge momentum for us right now,” Labrie said. “Our problem in the beginning was we couldn’t make the basic plays. We’d get the hit, but we couldn’t score the run. Now we’re just tying everything together.”

St. Dom’s has won 11 of 12 games since the sputtering start, outscoring opponents 72-12.

“It was always our goal before the season to make a deep run into the playoffs,” Mosca said. “We knew even though we were struggling early on that we had the talent and that we could pull it together and make a run like we’re doing now.”

Blackman took over the club when his son, Brady, was a freshman.

He has benefited from brother combinations as well as multi-sport athletes who have crossed over from the school’s successful soccer and hockey programs.

“It’s been a great run. It’s funny, because sometimes you take it for granted. The one year we didn’t make it, it brought us down to earth, and reality set in,” Blackman said. “But you don’t do anything different, and I think that’s part of what makes it work. We stick to our thoughts and our theories about how we get these guys ready throughout the year, and we follow that pattern.

“Kids come into the program expecting this. There’s going to be a period of time when it ain’t going to happen anymore, but in the meantime, 12 out of 13 is pretty good.”

Winthrop has been the only school to knock out St. Dom’s earlier than the regional final. The Ramblers upset the Saints in the 2012 quarters.

Dirigo and Telstar played in the Western Maine showcase that year.

“I think when you’re in a program at St. Dom’s, whether its baseball or hockey, for me, you’re expected to be near the top,” Labrie said. “You know you’ve got a coach like Coach Blackman, who’s probably one of the best in the state, so every year it’s expected out of us. It’s just great that even going in as a lower seed, we battled back and proved that we have one of the better teams and one of the better coaches in the state.”

St. Dom’s prolonged success has taken place in two conferences. The Saints made the switch from the Western Maine Conference to the Mountain Valley Conference five years ago.

Like most schools in the MVC, the Saints have stayed afloat under the pressure of declining student population. St. Dom’s carries 14 players on its roster.

“The other accomplishment I was thinking about the other day is if you go to the Principals’ Association site, we have the lowest enrollment in Western Maine Class C,” Blackman said. “To be able year after year after year to have this much success, we’re pretty fortunate.”

And good. So good, for so long.

koakes@sunjournal.com