The inexperienced Panther boys hockey team is still trying to find their identity, while the Scituate Sailors are looking for their third straight South Sectional finals appearance. The result when the two teams met Saturday night was a 5-0 loss for the Panthers at Rockland Rink and, according to head coach Rich Manning, a valuable lesson for his maturing team.

“We thought coming into the season that [Scituate] was going to be the team to beat,” Manning said. “The worst-case scenario was that we weren’t ready to compete with them and we learned that. We’ll see them again in a month and a half, and hopefully we’ll be a better team.”

The Sailors jumped out on the Panthers with three goals in the first period, and added two more in the second before benching their first line. Manning said the speed with which the Sailors moved through the neutral zone put too much pressure on his defensemen and created open looks at the net for the Sailors.

“We’re only playing five defensemen right now, so the kids were getting a little taxed,” he said. “But we didn’t quit and we fought hard.”

Though he liked the effort, Manning added that the Panthers need to cut down on their mistakes, which led to odd-man rushes for Scituate.

“We made some critical mistakes that we usually don’t make and we gave up far too many two-on-ones,” he said. “Against a good team like this they are going to be in the back of the net.”

The loss puts the Panthers at 1-1 in the Patriot League after they beat the Silver Lake Lakers 4-3 on Dec. 16.

The Panthers had their hands full with the Lakers in the first period, but goals from Brennan Lenane and Tom Murray and two good saves by Matt McDonald kept the Panthers in front 2-1. Whitman-Hanson came out with new life in the second period and carried the play for most of the period. The Panther fourth line came through with five minutes left in the period when junior Chris Mulrey scored off assists from Tyler Becker and Chris Lenoci.

“That was a great shift from our fourth line as they won battles down low,” Manning said. “We had our best period thus far as we picked up the energy by finishing our checks, winning battles and playing mostly in Silver Lake’s zone.”

David Colclough gave the Panthers a three-goal lead with just over two minutes elapsed in the third period, but Silver Lake made things interesting with two late goals to cut the lead to one. Joe Lochran scored his second of the game for the Lakers on the powerplay with 6:18 left, and Tom Lennon’s rising slapshot made it a one-goal game with three minutes left to play.

The Panthers regrouped and prevented the Lakers from pulling goalie Ryan Bartlett for an extra attacker in the final minute by keeping the puck in the Laker end. However, Manning said his team needs to do a better job controlling the final period and not let teams back into the game.

“We continued solid play, but a late penalty gave them some life just like in the Brockton game,” he said. “We need to play harder as we try and finish off games.”

The Panthers play a non-league game against Rockland on Dec. 23 and then return to league action Saturday when they host Hanover at Rockland Rink.