The Duxbury high School girls’ lacrosse team lived up to its billing as the No. 1 seed in the Division II South Sectional tournament with a convincing 18-8 win over No. 16 seeded Canton HS (9-8) on Tuesday afternoon in Duxbury.

While the score appears to show that the game wasn’t much of a contest, it certainly appeared that way in the first five minutes when the Lady Dragons ran away to a 4-0 lead on goals by Katie Smith, Kristen Brockwell, Hannah Murphy, and Emily Horton. What looked like a safe enough lead quickly evaporated when the Bulldogs reeled off four straight goals over the next nine minutes to tie the game, forcing Duxbury Coach Kelly Jurgens to call a timeout and get her team’s heads back in the game.

“They just needed to be reminded to play our game and not to play down to their level,” said Jurgens.

The lecture hit a nerve, as the Lady Dragons came back on the field and scored 17 seconds later when Murphy made it 5-4 with 11:14 left in the half.

From then on it was all Duxbury, as the refocused Lady Dragons proceeded to score seven straight goals by Emily Giumetti, Tina Balzotti (2), Murphy (2), and Lily Smith (2) to take a 12-4 halftime lead.

Molly Zaverucha and Horton opened the second half with a pair of goals that forced running time (10 goal lead), and Jurgens was able to substitute freely the rest of the afternoon.

Balzotti, Brockwell, Rachel Myette, and Horton would find the back of the net in the final 15 minutes staking Duxbury to an 18-6 lead before Canton closed out the scoring.

The win moves Duxbury on to quarterfinal action where they will play No. 8 seeded Nauset (17-4) at 4 p.m. on Thursday afternoon in Duxbury.