The best of western MA high school lacrosse has now met the best of the east, and there is little doubt who rules the roost. The Longmeadow Lancers (11-1) came to Duxbury on Saturday afternoon, and when they left to go home they understood why the Dragons have won five of the last six State championships.

The best of western MA high school lacrosse has now met the best of the east, and there is little doubt who rules the roost.

The Longmeadow Lancers (11-1) came to Duxbury on Saturday afternoon, and when they left to go home they understood why the Dragons have won five of the last six State championships.{sidebar id=4}

Division II State finalist in 2007, the visitors found out what many teams in this part of Massachusetts have experienced when playing the defending State champs. Scoring the first goal against Duxbury can be the kiss of death, and Longmeadow was no different.

THUMBS UP: Captains Craig Sullivan, Mark Murphy and Scott Austin show their approval after Duxbury took the Green Cup with its 16-5 win over Marshfield.

When Dave Thor gave the visitors a 1-0 lead in the first two minutes, it only served to start the engines of the Dragons, who proceeded to rip off nine straight goals and make a serious comeback bid impossible.

The Lancers did have their moments with a pair of four-goal streaks, but they were never enough to overcome Duxbury’s first half blitz that had the hosts ahead, 10-5, at halftime.

Two minutes after Thor’s score, Gus Quinzani got the Dragons on the board when he cut across the arc and buried one past goaltender Richard Al-Husseini to start the Duxbury assault.{sidebar id=1}

It took Duxbury just 22 seconds to grab the lead for good when defenseman Dan May found himself all alone at the top of the arc where he whistled a screamer along the ground that beat Al-Husseini with 8:45 left in the quarter.

Goals by Scott Austin (3), Hakeem Lecky (2), Quinzani, and Steve Ripley had Duxbury ahead 9-1 with 7:12 to go in the half, but the Dragons went into one of their momentary funks while the Lancers scored four straight goals to cut the deficit to 9-5.

Austin finally stopped the bleeding when he came out from behind the net and turned his defender to score on Al-Husseini with 51 seconds left in the half.

The Lancers went to the locker room with plenty of optimism after cutting into the huge Duxbury lead, but it was tempered quickly when Grant Marston and Austin scored in the first four minutes of the second half to give the Dragons a 12-5 lead.

Junior midfielder Niko Sierra muscled his way inside for a Longmeadow goal with 5:36 to go in the third quarter, but it only interrupted another Duxbury blitz that saw Marston and Austin combine for another pair of goals that put the Dragons on top by a 14-6 margin as the third quarter ended.

Holding a comfortable lead heading into the final 12 minutes, the Dragons suddenly went soft on their face-offs and couldn’t get a groundball.

Thor scored once again for the Lancers to make it 14-7, and he took less than a minute to cut the margin to 14-8.

While the crowd was restless, time was on the side of the Dragons, who methodically moved the ball on the perimeter during each possession to eat away at the clock.

“We had a good scouting report on them and knew who their best players were,” said Duxbury Coach Chris Sweet. “We thought if we could get the match-ups we wanted we would do great. We put defenseman Craig Sullivan on their best player and defenseman Mark Murphy on #11 (Reardon). Those two kids have been doing all their scoring this year and our kids did a good job on them.”

Two more Longmeadow goals made the score look respectable, but it didn’t prevent the Dragons from winning their third game of the week and raising their record to 13-2.

One of those wins was a 16-5 bashing of Marshfield last Wednesday on the road.

Once again the opposition scored first, and the Dragons made them pay dearly with a five-goal run over the next 10 minutes to grab a 5-1 lead with 10:31 left in the half.

Marshfield’s Andrew Brown broke the streak with 3:20 left in the half, but a pair of goals by junior attack Jake Harvey in the final three minutes put a dent in the Rams’ comeback bid.

It was all Duxbury in the second half, as it built on its 7-2 lead with goals by Austin (2), Quinzani and Sweet that had them ahead 11-3 as the third quarter neared an end.

With the outcome of the game never in doubt, the Dragons traded goals with the Rams during the fourth quarter and left the field with a victory and the Green Cup, symbolic of the rivalry between the two teams.

This week marks what could be the toughest back-to-back games on the schedule for the Dragons, as they entertain a Xaverian squad on Wednesday afternoon at 4 that hopes to avenge last year’s loss to the Dragons in the State championship. Two days later Duxbury heads to B.C High for a Friday night contest in Dorchester at 6:30.{sidebar id=6}