After an opening-season loss to defending State champion Plymouth North, the DHS baseball team has shown they could well be in the mix for a title themselves after getting through one of the tougher weeks in its schedule and coming out unscathed.

With wins over Whitman-Hanson (4-3), Hanover (8-3), and Middleboro (6-5), the Dragons now stand at 5-1 overall and 5-0 in Patriot League play at the spring break.

Junior pitcher Jeff Blout (2-0) continues to have an outstanding season for the Dragons and he showed it last Monday afternoon in Whitman, as he allowed just two hits until the sixth inning when sophomore Phil Sciretta came on in relief to shut down the Panthers.

Sciretta contributed at the plate as well, as he went 2-3 with an RBI and was helped by junior Pat McWilliams who went 2-3. Senior Shane DiBona contributed a pair of RBI in the win.

The Dragons came back two days later with a convincing 8-3 win over Hanover, as senior Tyler Genereux fanned nine Indians and scattered seven hits.

The game was scoreless entering the bottom of the third, but the Dragons started off with three straight singles by Tom Dacey, Jack Garrity, and Genereux. Sciretta stepped to the plate and crushed a grand slam for what proved to be the winning runs.

The Indians came right back with three runs in the top of the fourth, but the Duxbury bats exploded once again in the bottom of the fifth for four more runs to put the game away.

RBI singles by Sciretta and Colin Woods knocked home a pair of runs, while Dacey delivered the big blow of the inning with a two-run double.

The Dragons were at it again the following afternoon and took eight innings before they put away Middleboro.

It wasn’t easy, as Sciretta gave up a grand slam in the first inning to pin the Dragons with a 4-0 deficit.

Duxbury chipped away at the Sachem’s lead and thought they had halved it when Sciretta hit a two-run homer. But the umpire ruled it a ground-rule double and the scored remained at 4-1.

Two Duxbury runs cut the margin to 4-3 in the bottom of the fifth, but Middleboro responded with a run in the sixth for a 5-3 lead.

With two outs in the bottom of the sixth the Dragons made their move when Sciretta smacked a two-run double to tie the game and send it into extra innings.

Great relief pitching by Steve Blout kept the Sachems off the board in the eighth inning and the Dragons put the game away in the bottom of the inning, thanks in large part to the speed of shortstop Sean Cross.

After leading off the inning with a single, Cross stole second and third base, forcing Middleboro to intentionally walk Sciretta (.565 BA/17 RBI in six games). DiBona followed with a sacrifice fly, sending Duxbury to its fifth straight win.

On Saturday night the Dragons will entertain Marshfield in non-league action starting at 6 p.m.