Maybe losing their home opener was a good thing for the Lady Dragons. Now they know that being the defending state champs was last year’s accomplishment and the bull’s eye on their backs will be bigger and brighter as the season goes along. Taking on Silver Lake last Tuesday night in the second game of a doubleheader, the Lady Dragons had their hands full with the Lakers, who kept them off the scoreboard while on their way to a 2-0 victory.

While Coach Emerson Coleman wasn’t thrilled with how his team started its season, he is well aware of the adjustment period that will take place for his new starters on defense.

That adjustment period seemed to continue in the early going in Thursday’s game in Scituate, but the Lady Dragons recovered and got their offense back in gear with a 4-1 win over the Sailors.

“They are starting to get organized in the defensive zone and are a little unsure about getting it up field,” said Coleman. “But as they get more experience, they’ll get more confident.”

Midway through the first half, Duxbury scored its first goal of the season when junior Melissa Gavin nailed a direct kick over the Scituate wall of defenders and into the top left corner at the 20:22 mark for a 1-0 lead.

Ten minutes later, the Lady Dragons added to their lead when senior captain Caitlin Burke dribbled her way around two Scituate defenders and promptly fired a shot low to the right of Sailor keeper Alannah Whitford for what looked like a comfortable 2-0 lead.

Duxbury sat back on its heels over the next few minutes, almost surrendering a goal when a Sailor shot rang off the cross bar and landed in front of keeper Emily Brook.

The second half started much like the first, as Scituate came out aggressively and managed to cut the lead to 2-1 on a Katelyn Fougere with 27:58 left in the game.

The pressure continued on Brook, as the Sailors fired a direct kick over the cross bar with 24:40 on the clock, and forced the sophomore netminder to make a diving save less than a minute later.

Duxbury needed a big play to stem the tide and they got it from Gavin, who came flying down the left wing and burned the defense, burying her shot to Whitford’s right and temporarily taking the steam out of the Scituate attack.

The Sailors had their chances, hitting the post to Brook’s left on a shot in the box with 11:48 to go, then watching a corner kick deflect off a Duxbury defender and narrowly miss the post.

Any chance of a Scituate comeback bid was put to rest with 5:32 remaining when the speedy Burke came flying down the right side and cut to her left as she blew by her defender, going in alone on Whitford and firing her shot along the ground for the final score of the day.

“I see us as a very balanced team with a lot of kids who will chip in and do some scoring. But when you have players like Gavin and Burke who can make a big difference in every game, they need to do it and they did today,” said Coleman.

After entertaining Whitman-Hanson Tuesday night, the Lady Dragons are ready to begin a string of four away games that start on Thursday afternoon when they travel to North Quincy to take on the Red Raiders at 4 p.m.