The Panthers took some steps in the right direction on Saturday following their 5-1 loss to the North Quincy Red Raiders on Dec. 14, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the defending Patriot League champions.

The Scituate Sailors outshot the Panthers 42 to 12 en route to handing Whitman-Hanson a 4-1 loss at Hobomock Ice Arena that dropped the Panthers to 1-2 on the season.

Despite the disparity in shots, the Panthers only trailed by a goal entering the third period. But Connor Caffrey scored in the first minute of the third and Tucker Ciessau put the game out of reach for Whitman-Hanson with an empty-net goal in the final minute.

Scituate took the lead in controversial fashion with 7:22 to play in the first when Johnny Callahan’s wrist shot appeared to bounce off the crossbar toward the boards, but the official ruled that the puck had crossed the goal line and gave the Sailors a 1-0 lead. The decision seemed to take the Panthers out of their element as the Sailors quickly skated back down the ice after the faceoff and padded their lead with a goal by Alex Way.

“We don’t have a ton of confidence right now, so giving up the first one hurts,” head coach Rich Manning said. “But things happen and they have good players. Scituate skates well and dumps the puck in, and we spent a lot of our time just trying to get it out.”

After putting just two shots on goal in the first period, the Panthers started to show signs of life offensively in the second. With 10:08 left in the period, they cut the lead to one on a Chris Ryan one-timer from Jake Bowen. Minutes later, they nearly tied the game when Chris Boussy broke free of the Sailor defenders and skated in alone on the net, but was denied by a sprawling save from junior Matt Gentile.

While Gentile kept the Sailors in front on his end of the ice, sophomore Mike Bonavita was keeping the Panthers in the game on the other. Bonavita stopped all 17 shots he faced in the second period on his was to a 39-save effort for the Panthers.

“Michael had his best game yet,” Manning said. “He really gained some confidence in there and gave us a chance.”

While it was a tough loss for the Panthers, Manning said the Panthers finished the game with two strong periods of hockey and looked like a different team than the one that lost 5-1 to the Raiders.

“You wash out the first period today and it is like night and day,” he said. “We didn’t really compete well in the first, but in the second and third we took it personal and we made it a hockey game. The kids played hard, they blocked some shots and we made some good body contact. We had better plays and better patience as the game went on. Hopefully we can build on that and get better.”

The Panthers will need to play three solid periods Wednesday night if that want to snap their losing streak when they play the Pembroke Titans. Pembroke lost a large group of seniors from their South Sectional championship team a year ago, but looked as dominant as ever in a 9-3 win over Silver Lake in their first game Saturday.

“Pembroke is very similar to Scituate in that they have kids who can get up and down the ice,” Manning said. “It’s going to be a lot like today’s game, and we need to be ready to go at the drop of the puck. We need to see if we can get some shots early and maybe grab the lead and build.”