They come into the tournament in a very unfamiliar role: the second seed in the MIAA Division I Lacrosse Championships.

By virtue of their 12-10 loss to St. John’s Prep earlier in the season, the Dragons will take a back seat to the Eagles, who enter postseason play as the top seed with a 16-2 record.

It appears the Dragons have the tougher draw of the two teams with Xaverian (#7), BC High (#6), and Billerica (#3) on their side. Therefore, the road won’t be easy if the Dragons are to repeat, and they’ll get their stiffest test yet on Wednesday afternoon when they host Xaverian in quarterfinal play at 4 p.m. in Duxbury.

While the road to the championship is fraught with danger, the Dragons had little trouble in first-round action when they defeated Acton-Boxboro, 12-6, on Saturday afternoon in Duxbury.

The Colonials came into the game as the #18 seed with a 10-8 record, and beat Haverhill, 11-10, in preliminary round action to advance.

If anyone had told you the Dragons would only be leading 1-0 after the first period of Saturday’s game, you surely would have wondered if maybe they were just waiting for the finals to begin.

Playing a deliberate, slow-down game, the Colonials held Duxbury to one goal that came off the stick of senior captain Jake Harvey with 3:14 left in the period.

AB would continue to aggravate the Dragons by tying the game just under three minutes into the second quarter, when David Cremmen picked off a deflected clearing pass and put one past goalie Mickey Zaverucha to make it 1-1.

Sophomore Kane Haffey would get it right back, as he found himself alone at the left post to take a pass and put it by Sean Ohanian just 14 seconds later.

Cremmen would score again to make it 2-2, but goals by Harvey (2) and Haffey (2) made it 6-2 with 7:41 left in the half.

AB sandwiched a pair of goals around a Hakeem Lecky rocket in the final four minutes and left the field at halftime in goods spirits trailing 7-4.

The Dragons sometimes let you think that there is a possibility that this could be one of those rare days when they are ripe for a loss.

If the Colonials were thinking that after 24 minutes of action, then reality set in quickly in the second half.

Holding the visitors to just two meaningless goals late in the second half, Duxbury walked away with a 12-6 win on second-half goals by Lecky, Haffey, Quinn Cully, and Andy Puopolo (2). 

“They were pumped up and ready to play,” said Duxbury Coach Chris Sweet. “We had a long layover since our last game, so I’m just hoping it’s rust. But we’ll need to play much better if we are going to go all the way.”

Facing a stretch of three tough games, Sweet talked about his team’s chances in Wednesday’s game against Xaverian and what the Dragons need to do in order to win the title for the sixth straight year. 

“We have a good team this year, but we really have to play well in order to dominate. If we are just off a little bit then we have to slug it out with the other team,” said the Duxbury coach. “It was a close game with Xaverian last time, so we’ll have to play just as well. They threw some zone at us last time, but we should be able to handle that. The one thing about Xaverian is that they never quit, so we have to play a full four quarters.”