Starting last week with a 12-2 record and a legitimate shot at the Patriot League crown, hopes were high after a 5-1 win over Scituate and a 15-3 shellacking of Hingham.

With two of the better league teams on the docket over the next three days, the Lady Dragons were confident that their bats were hot and their pitching and defense would prevail.

Unfortunately, someone pulled the plug, as Coach Carol Savino’s squad went scoreless in two of the bigger games of the season in losses to Silver Lake (4-0) and Whitman-Hanson (1-0).

Duxbury’s Casey Ducinski battled Silver Lake’s Katie Stanley through four innings of scoreless ball. However, the Laker right-hander stepped to the plate in the top of the fifth inning and helped her own cause by launching a two-run homer over the fence down the left field line for a 2-0 lead.

The Lady Dragons would come back with a pair of runners in the bottom of the inning, but neither could score, squandering the last serious offensive threat of the afternoon for Duxbury.

With Stanley mowing down the Duxbury lineup, the Lakers put the nail in the Lady Dragon coffin in the seventh, as three singles, a walk, and a fielder’s choice plated two more runs for the final score.

The battle for sole possession of the Patriot League Keenan Division title was up for grabs on Friday in Whitman, and when it was over the Lady Dragons could only hope for some help.

Unable to take advantage of Ducinski’s two-hit/six-strikeout performance, Duxbury dropped a 1-0 decision to the Panthers, giving Whitman-Hanson a chance to wrap up the title for good with a win over Scituate this week.

A Panther bunt in the bottom of the third proved disastrous, as Ducinski fielded the ball and threw it over the head of first baseman Kerry Turok. Another bunt would move the runner to third, where she scored on a Gianna DeSisto double for the winning run.

W-H pitcher Rylee Burt kept Duxbury in check for much of the game and survived a mild scare in the fifth when two runners reached base, and again in the sixth when Alysha Huntington made a great catch to double up the Lady Dragons on the base paths to get out of the inning.