The Duxbury boys’ soccer team was eliminated from postseason play on Sunday night in Canton when they dropped a 1-0 decision to top seed Sandwich (17-1-3) in the semifinals of the MIAA Division II South Sectionals. Coach John Tocci’s team saw immediately why the Blue Knights were the top seed, as goaltender Max Cote was forced to make two diving saves in the first five minutes to keep his team in the game.

The Dragons would counter with a pair of corner kicks and almost went ahead at the 30:15 mark, when a Morgan Dwinnell throw-in went over the goalie’s head but was tipped away at the last minute.

The Blue Knights kept coming in waves, once again forcing Cote to make a spectacular sliding save on a shot through a screen with 21 minutes left in the half. A minute later the Duxbury netminder did it again, sending a deflected shot over the crossbar to keep the game scoreless.

The relentless Sandwich offense earned three corners in a two-minute span in the last 10 minutes of the half, but Duxbury’s defense held the fort and went into the intermission with a 0-0 tie.

“We were just out of it in the first minutes of the game,” said Tocci. “Max had to cover our butt. It wasn’t that they were dominating us. We just didn’t want to play. Then we woke up and started playing the rest of the half.”

The Blue Knights wouldn’t let up, and came out in the second half much like the first, as they hammered away at Cote and finally beat him just over a minute into the half when junior Nick Cotter sent a low shot through a screen that the Duxbury goalie never saw.

The Dragons would get some chances throughout the second half, but rarely tested Sandwich goalie Kyle Van Cleef, whose teammates played kickball for most of the final 40 minutes when Duxbury made any kind of foray into the Sandwich end.

“The better high school team won the game today and that’s how it is,” said Tocci. “I think these two teams are evenly matched and can beat each other on any given day. They were better and quicker than we were today and that got us out of our rhythm.”

The Dragons end their season at 14-2-5 and graduate 20 seniors from this year’s squad.