Pats bounce back, win first league game since 2011

William Geoghegan
Posted 10/7/14

Coming off a lopsided loss in its Division III debut, the Pilgrim football team fell behind 7-0 against Ponaganset on Friday night.

From that beginning, the Patriots came as close as they have …

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Pats bounce back, win first league game since 2011

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Coming off a lopsided loss in its Division III debut, the Pilgrim football team fell behind 7-0 against Ponaganset on Friday night.

From that beginning, the Patriots came as close as they have all year to playing the way they’ve hoped. After the early score, Pilgrim shut down the Chieftains until the final drive of the game. In between, they hit their stride on offense, scoring four touchdowns on their way to a 30-14 victory.

It’s Pilgrim’s first win in a league game since 2011.

“Overall, the kids played a much cleaner game,” said head coach Tom O’Connor. “The biggest thing from the Lincoln game was that we had to eliminate our mental mistakes. We did that and it put us right in there. It gave us a chance to win.”

The Pats improved to 1-1 in league play, while Ponaganset dropped to 0-3.

The performance was just what Pilgrim needed. Against Lincoln the week before, the Pats lost 31-0. Two of their top players were out with injuries, and miscues piled up.

The focus was on fixing them.

“The week of practice was positive,” O’Connor said. “We watched a lot of film and showed the kids how all the mistakes added up. We showed them that we really stopped ourselves. There aren’t a lot of plays for third-and-25. We dedicated ourselves to cleaning up the snap counts, the holding calls and executing on offense.”

It worked. After taking a one-point lead into halftime against Ponaganset, the Pats caught fire in the second half, sparked by a big play. Coming out of the break, they called a halfback option pass for Owen Kelly. The junior connected with David McMullen for a 60-yard touchdown.

“It was a confidence builder,” O’Connor said.

Pilgrim scored on its next two drives to blow the game open. Confidence, finally, was soaring.

“The confidence builder for the kids was the biggest thing we took away from it,” O’Connor said. “I think they needed to see that if we execute and play mistake free, we can compete with these teams. The coaches knew it, but the kids needed to know it.”

Kelly added a rushing touchdown, while McMullen also caught a touchdown pass from Rob Quaine. Garrison Potter had a 37-yard touchdown run.

Pilgrim’s defense, which played well in the first half against Lincoln, delivered a full game of solid play against Ponaganset. The Chieftains could do very little outside of their bookend scoring drives.

“We played really well defensively,” O’Connor said. “We had an alignment issue that we fixed and we didn’t give up another touchdown until the end of the game.”

Pilgrim will return to action Saturday when it visits Classical at 2:30 p.m. The Purple is 2-1 and lost to East Greenwich this past week.

“We just need to come out fast and strong,” O’Connor said. “Fast and strong for four quarters.”

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