BRUNSWICK — The top-seeded Dragons of Brunswick High needed less than a minute to take a lead, and less than five to establish their dominance.

They quickly turned the Eastern Class A boys’ lacrosse championship into a rout, dominating No. 2 Messalonskee 21-4 Wednesday evening at Brunswick High to return to the state final.

Brunswick (15-0) will face Western Maine champ South Portland on Saturday morning at Fitzpatrick Stadium in the Class A title game, for the second year in a row. The Red Riots won 10-8 last year.

On Wednesday against a team that had averaged nearly 11 goals against them in three previous meetings, the Dragons were relentless. Christian Glover scored in the opening minute. Shortly thereafter, Cam Glover, Kyle Woodruff and Cole Hillis scored in a span of 53 seconds as senior midfielder Ian Schlosser began a possession streak of 12 consecutive faceoffs.

“That’s not normal,” said Brunswick Coach Don Glover. “He’s an exceptional faceoff midfielder. When you have somebody like that, you get to take advantage of possession. In this game of ebb and flow, the more you possess, obviously, the more you can dictate the pace of the game.”

T.J. Sullivan wound up with seven goals for Brunswick, which opened a 5-0 lead before Messalonskee (10-5) broke up the shutout on a goal by Dylan Jones in the eighth minute. It was 6-1 after one quarter and 14-2 at intermission.

Because Brunswick led by a dozen, the entire second half was played under running time.

“We played them three times before and they’ve been really close games,” Sullivan said of the earlier contests with Messalonskee, 19-12 and 17-13 wins in May and a 15-7 victory in the KVAC championship game in early June. “This game was kind of an outlier to those. We really played well. Everybody was firing on all cylinders.”

Matt Brooks led Brunswick with six assists. Ryan Croatti and Cam Glover each scored three times, with Glover adding three assists. Woodruff finished with two goals and two assists. Brooks, Hillis, Christian Glover, Owen Ginty, and Tyler Hillis each scored.

“They’re the best team in the East other than us,” Brooks said. “We respected them. We knew they were going to come out hard.

“Once we got those first five goals, though, we just kept rolling. We didn’t let off the gas pedal.”

Schlosser won 15 of the 18 faceoffs in the first half to maintain control. The Dragons wound up with a 29-9 advantage in shots before intermission and goalkeeper Mitchell Smith made five saves to frustrate the Eagles on the rare occasions they attacked.

“I think they’re going to be very tough to beat in the state game,” said Messalonskee Coach Tom Sheridan. “They played well in every facet of the game – goaltending, clearing, ground balls, everything. It showed our younger team what they need to do next year.”

Brunswick boasts 16 seniors to Messalonskee’s four.

The Dragons erased any comeback hopes by scoring the first seven goals of the second half.