The Whitman-Hanson boys basketball team surged through the second half of the season to make a surprise run at the Patriot League banner, but the North Quincy Red Raiders were not to be denied.

The Raiders ended the Panthers’ banner hopes by beating them 60-47 at North Quincy Tuesday night, effectively clinching the league championship.

The two teams traded runs for most of the first half, but the Raiders broke away late in the second quarter when they ran a five-point lead to 17 by halftime. The deficit was too much for the Panthers to overcome as they never got within 10 points of North Quincy in the second half.

The Panthers held the Raiders to 39 points in their first meeting of the season, but the Raiders found the holes in the Panther defense the second time around.

“They sent a lot of guys on backdoor cuts and some back screens, and we didn’t react well to it,” head coach Bob Rodgers said. “We didn’t communicate on the screens and they got a lot of easy hoops.”

It was the first league loss for the Panthers in nearly a month, and the Panthers seemed to be missing the intensity and aggression that had helped them on their winning streak. North Quincy out-rebounded the Panthers 27-11 while Rodgers said the team seemed to lose some of their confidence offensively when their shots weren’t falling early. The Panthers were held to 44 points in a loss to Circle Christian in Florida over the school vacation, but their 47-point total against the Raiders was their lowest against a Massachusetts team this season.

“The reality of it was that we didn’t have guys who wanted to step up and make the big shot for us,” Rodgers said. “We passed up a lot of shots and this team is too good to do that. I think we came out pretty tentative and that was a big factor in the game.”

Their trouble rebounding hurt the Panthers early in the game as a pair of put backs by Paul Cunniff gave the Raiders the lead in the final minute of the first quarter. The Panthers came out more aggressive in the second quarter, but struggled to hit their shots while the Raiders ran their lead to 10 when Efthim Butka completed a 3-point play and then got five quick points from Kyle Richardson on their way to a 38-21 halftime lead.

“Those were a lot of easy buckets for them,” Rodgers said. “It wasn’t really anything they had to work for, it was a product of our poor defense.”

The Panthers cut the lead down to 10 in the third quarter on a floater in the lane from Brian Feeney, but Daniel Gould killed the rally with a basket and foul shot to put North Quincy back up by 13. Marquis McLendon then sank a layup to give the Raiders a 49-34 lead at the end of the third quarter. The Panthers never got within 12 again.

With the league championship now out of the picture, the Panthers will shift their focus to qualifying for the MIAA tournament with a win in at least one of their final three games. The Panthers will try to secure their playoff spot with a win on Thursday when they host Duxbury.