It wasn’t pretty, but then again they don’t award style points. All that mattered was the Dragons won their ninth straight game with a 63-46 Patriot League win over Hanover on Friday night in Duxbury.

It was a grinder of a game that stayed close throughout the first quarter, with Hanover grabbing an 8-7 lead with 2:52 remaining on a Bryan Gray hoop.

A put-back basket by Aaron Kramer after he grabbed an offensive rebound would keep Duxbury in the lead for the rest of the night, as the first quarter ended with the Dragons up 11-9.

The combination of senior Mark Brust (6 pts.) and junior Brian Grossman (9 pts.) blew the game wide open over the next eight minutes, putting the Dragons ahead 27-19 as the first half ended.

Any chance Hanover had of getting back in the game evaporated at the start of the third quarter, as Brust outscored the Indians 8-4, forcing Coach Mark Molloy to call a timeout to stop the bleeding.

Coming out of the break and trailing 35-23, the Indians put on a spurt and narrowed the gap to 37-31 with less than a minute to go in the quarter.

A Duxbury timeout brought guard Mike Casal into the game, and the senior wasted little time in making his presence felt. With 42 seconds on the clock Casal nailed the first of his four consecutive three-pointers from the top of the arc, pushing the lead to 49-36 early in the final quarter.

“Mike has always been an option, but he hasn’t been hot for a while,” said Coach Gordon Cushing. “But the last three games he has shot the ball well. When we have all our guards out there they can’t cover them all, so we just have to keep feeding the hot guy.”

The Indians got within striking distance at 51-41 when Ian Whitney fouled out with 5:12 to go, but a Sam Davidson three-pointer kept the visitors at bay until the benches emptied with 1:59 left and the Dragons comfortably ahead 59-44.

Brust had a big night for Duxbury with 24 points, leaving him 29 points shy of the 1000-point mark for his career. Casal finished with 15 points on five treys, while Grossman scored all his points in the first half and ended with nine.

“It was kind of an ugly game,” said Cushing. “A lot of turnovers and a lot of fouls. The turnovers came against no pressure and the offense was sloppy. The defense was fine because we held them to less than 50. It was just one of those games that didn’t go smooth. We didn’t have our best game, but it was good enough to win.”

On Friday night the Dragons will travel to Pembroke for a 6:30 encounter with the Titans.